Demons and Wizards
by Cobalt Demoness
Summary: When Hogwarts is surrounded by monsters, there's only one person you can call: everyone's favourite demon slayer, Dante! This is not your typical crossover. There is the DMC universe and the HP universe: and they are the same... [New title, any thoughts?]
1. The Call

The Daily Prophet had screeched the news with what could be taken as barely disguised joy - the Ministry of Magic had been invaded once again, by none other than He Who Must Not Be Named. Even Rita Skeeter had gone to town with the story and all over the country, people demanded Rufus Scrimgeour's removal from office. It wasn't just the invasion that drove them to this - it was the consequences of such an invasion.

For about thirty-six hours, absolutely nothing happened. The wizarding community held its breath as the Muggle world passed by, unaware of the drama unfolding. And then suddenly the calm before the storm was chatted. Creatures appeared, the likes of which had never been seen before but their purpose was all too clear - to attack, to maim, to kill. Before long England was overrun with the beasts and absolutely nobody knew what to do about it.

**HOGWARTS BESIEGED BY MONSTERS **

"Trapped," Harry Potter said bleakly, tossing the paper onto the table. The Great Hall was filled with muted whispers and the fact that only half its pupils had returned did not account for the relative silence. Of these pupils, two had been killed, three mauled by the nameless horrors that waited outside. Even Peeves was morose, his pranks half-hearted at best. Ron picked up the newspaper and flicked through it for the fifth time while Hermione's fretful glances kept returning to the Headmistress, who was staring balefully into her bowl of porridge.

"We've got to do something," Harry muttered, repeating a line often said for the past week. Nobody was allowed to venture outside. Outside, hundreds upon hundreds of bloodthirsty beats stalked the grounds. The centaurs had initially refused outside help but had eventually been forced to evacuate before the Forest was overrun. Nobody knew how the unicorns were faring and Hagrid was almost constantly silent in his concern over Grawp. So far, not even the Aurors had been able to free the school. It was not just the monsters keeping them at bay - Death Eaters had been sighted and it was thought that the Dark Lord himself was present at times. And there were whispers of another enemy, worse than the Dark Lord. This menace had no name, had not been seen, but still the rumours flew.

"There's nothing we can do, Harry," Hermione said, breaking the silence again.

"I know! It just pisses me off! Surrounded by monsters with nowhere to go and Voldemort's out there and I'm a sitting _duck_! I haven't even found any of his -"

"Shut up," Ron interjected warningly. Harry's outburst was attracting stares. They were the only three who knew about the Horcruxes and Harry intended to keep it that way.

"What's McGonagall doing about this?" asked Harry furiously.

"I'm sure she's doing all she can -" Hermione began but Harry cut across her.

"She isn't! She's sitting there, looking at her breakfast!" With that, Harry leapt up and stalked towards the staff table. Ron and Hermione exchanged uneasy glances and followed their friend.

Headmistress McGonagall didn't look up until Harry was stood right in front of her and had made his presence known by clearing his throat. She glanced up at him and Harry hesitated. She seemed so... lost. But he was determined to have his say.

"Professor, we have to do something," he said firmly. "We can't just stay in here, waiting for them. I need to get out of here - !"

"I would prefer it if you could lower your voice, Harry," Professor McGonagall interrupted. Stares were once more being directed at him. "I think it would be best if we discussed this in my office. You three come with me." She glanced to her left, where Remus Lupin sat, having accepted the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher once more. "You too Remus. And Hagrid." She stood up swiftly and the group moved off to her office. Harry's mind was filled with plans but he couldn't think of a way out of this mess.

As they entered the office, whispers erupted - the portraits were awake and curious as to why such a crowd had arrived. The mutterings continued until a raised voice cut across them. "I hope you all realise that it is very rude to whisper."

Harry's lurched, as it always did upon hearing the voice of the dead Albus Dumbledore. He turned to see Dumbledore's portrait smiling at him, spectacles twinkling.

"Looking well, Harry," the portrait noted. Harry nodded, unable to think of a response. What made it worse was that he had not yet started his mission to retrieve the Horcruxes, something he suspected Dumbledore knew, even if he was only portrait.

"It must be a serious matter indeed for you all to have arrived," Dumbledore added gravely.

Harry found his voice again. "It's these monsters sir. We can't wait for them to starve us out -"

"We wouldn't starve," objected Hagrid in a rather plaintive voice.

"Maybe not, but those things can wait. We're not getting any younger."

"The Aurors have tried everything," Lupin put in. His face was etched with ever deepening wrinkles - he always feared for Tonks's safety, who had taken it upon herself to be at the front line of every assault. "But the beasts just keep coming. There's no end to the damn things."

Dumbledore frowned, his keen glance trained on Professor McGonagall. "There is one course of action left, is there not, Minerva?"

McGonagall appeared rather put out. "Well, yes, Albus, but you know how I feel -"

He interrupted her protests sharply. "You are also aware of my feelings in the matter." A statement rather than a question.

"Of course but his methods are rather unorthodox."

"Orthodox methods will not get you out of this situation," said Dumbledore sternly and then a familiar twinkle appeared in his eyes. "In any case, I'm certain you only object to him because of his vocabulary."

She bristled at that but Dumbledore spoke before she could protest further. "Call him. No more arguing. This is not a time for division." Mc Gonagall whirled on Lupin, who shrugged helplessly. Either he had no idea what the two were on about or he did not want to disagree with Dumbledore. Hagrid's reaction was the same.

"Oh very _well_." To the surprise of most of the room's occupants, McGonagall rooted through a cabinet and extracted an ancient telephone.

"What's a fellytone doing in Hogwarts?" Ron asked in amazement.

"Telephone," Hermione correct in a distracted voice. The Headmistress ignored Ron's question and pulled out a dust covered notebook, before flicking through it.

"I made a few adjustments to it," Dumbledore said brightly. "It works in the school and will call any number in the world. Never caught on though. Most wizards prefer owls or Floo powder. No silly business with wrong numbers that way."

Ron began saying that Mr Weasley would love such an item but McGonagall shushed him as she clutched the handpiece, her knuckles almost white. Somewhere, a phone was ringing.


	2. Dartboard

**Chapter Two - Dartboard**

"Take that, you evil bastard."

Each word was punctuated by a brief whistling and a thump, the last such thump accompanied by a mirthless snicker. The darts were embedded in a recently acquired dartboard, and had pierced an even more recently acquired photo. This photo depicted a short fat man, hair brushed into a pathetic combover, sweat streaming into small piggy eyes. In a word, the man was ugly, a fact the dart thrower was taking extreme pleasure in.

"How did you like _that_, you lump of lard?" Thick boots clumped on the floorboards as the man stalked over and yanked the darts out. This was no mean feat, as the darts had been embedded half way and no ordinary man could have yanked them out. But it had not been an ordinary man who'd thrown them.

The man in question was called Dante and was in fact half-human. The other half was demon and the two combined to create a tall man with highly toned muscles and piercing blue eyes. Nothing particularly strange then, until you noticed the hair - and you certainly would, because it was pure white. Yet his face was not wrinkled or lined, but youthful. It was possible to describe him in two words - either 'devilishly handsome' or 'bloody weird'. Dante generally preferred the former.

"Thirty percent increase," came the irritated mutterings. "As if I'm not stretched enough as it is." Another dart flew through the air. "I'm down to two pizzas a week already! The guy's trying to starve me out." At first Dante's great fondness had rapidly depleted the business funds until Trish pointed out sourly that at this rate they would be bankrupt within months.

It was at times like this that Dante sincerely wished Lady had not departed for Australia, or Asia - or maybe Europe, Dante forgot which - to set up her own branch of the demon-hunting business, though she had refused to change the name to _Devil Never Cry_. Dante would have preferred to argue out the pizza thing with her; he would have lost but it was infinitely easier than arguing with one's own mother.

Well... lookalike mother.

That was the problem though. Trish was not only a carbon copy of the deceased Eva in looks, but she sounded the same and even _acted_ like a mother! Dante growled in frustration. What was a badass demon hunter to do?

For the moment, throw darts.

_Thump. Thump. Ring. Thump._

Hang on. Darts did not ring. They only thumped. It was not within a dart's ability to ring. Whistle, yes. Thump, yes. Ring, no. Unless of course bells were attached. But who'd want ringing darts? Dante thought, mind still caught up with thirty percent. Surely you would want _silent_ darts, otherwise they would be useless as a weapon and what else were darts for, after all? Apart from playing darts, but -

"Dante, answer that phone or so help me I will ram it down your throat!" There was the motherly yell of Trish, coming from the bathroom where she was no doubt washing her hair. Again. Phone. Oh... _phone_. That explained the ringing. See, darts could not ring, as Dante had argued with himself...

The _phone_ was _ringing_.

"Aha!" yelled Dante, suddenly overcome with joy. A call at last!

Dante was particularly overjoyed because a phone call usually meant a job and a job _always_ meant money! Which was particularly good because of the thirty percent increase on his rent. Jobs had been scarce lately - it was as if the demons had decided Hell was actually a pretty cool place to hang out and the human world sucked in comparison. Okay, great, except that left Dante out of work, out of money, and out of his home.

But demons never stayed in Hell. The idiots among them just came to the human world for the sake of it and the smarter ones wanted the two world reunited. Bad for humans. Very bad for Dante. He suspected that few, if any, demons would forgive either him or -

_PHONE!_

Dante leaped forward - dived really - and rapidly vaulted over his desk, landing neatly in his chair. That's if you can call making a racket and nearly tipping the chair over 'neat'. The impact caused the phone's handpiece to fly into the air. He caught it deftly, a rather insane grin on his face.

"Showoff," Trish chided him, still in the bathroom, having correctly worked out who had caused the noise.

"Spoilsport," Dante called back brightly. If he couldn't show off to bad guys, how else was he going to prove he was still stylish? Make that SSStylish. He raised the phone and put on his business voice. "Devil Never Cry. Extreme pest exterminators."

"Jackpot," the person calling said. Bingo. There was the password, meaning the work would be interesting, though the half-demon was so desperate he would have taken care of a rat problem.

Desperation aside, something niggled. He could have sworn the voice was familiar. Then again, he met so many people, it could be any one of the terrified victims he had helped. And then one of the not so terrified. The memory clicked suddenly and his grin would have spread even wider if that had been possible.

"Hey, it's Minnie! Everyone's favourite old biddy! How've you been doing?" Pause for more effect. "Babe?" Dante clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his snickers. On the other side of the ocean, McGonagall's office resounded with laughter. To Dante's glee, the sound of grinding teeth could be heard. Sounded like he'd touched a nerve.

"Got company, have we?"

"Mr. Dante, I -"

"It's never wise to call me when friends are around."

"_Listen_ to -"

"You just know I'll embarrass you. And by the way, it's just Dante. I told you last time, Minnie."

"Be quiet and pay attention!"

"I don't want to. You're no fun." Dante fidgeted and yawned. Note to self: no more late night drinking. "Put Dumbly on, he appreciates my great wit."

"Albus Dumbledore is dead."

For once, the demon slayer found himself without a smart response. "Run that by me again."

"He was murdered at the end of the school year by Severus Snape, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"Snape?" Dante's brow furrowed into a frown. "Greasy haired git, right? Hang on a second, I thought he was the Potion's master?"

"Yes."

"Why the hell did he get the other job? He's pure evil, even I saw that, just from a glance! That guy is a warped son of a bitch, any fool could have -"

"Dante, I did not call to discuss Severus Snape's personality traits," McGonagall interrupted sharply. "The school needs your help." Dante considered tossing in a sarcastic remark but remained silent. "We are surrounded by hordes of monsters, nobody knows what they are and nobody can drive them back."

"Hm." He chewed his lip thoughtfully. "Wait a sec." He extracted a mangled notebook from a desk drawer. He rarely used it, except to sketch pictures not suitable for young children. A pen was stuck in the middle somewhere. He held it, poised above the notebook.

"Describe them."

"Oh, well... it varies. The most common ones are quite shortish, wearing black ragged cloaks and carrying scythes. They have glowing eyes, red or white usually. I'm not sure if they've any flesh... they just seem to be skeletons."

Through all this the pen had been scribbling furiously, a scrawl which only Dante could decipher. Both Trish and Lady constantly begged him to write more neatly but to no avail. The fact that his spelling was atrocious did nothing to help. If you could make out the handwriting, you would have read: _Sounds like Hell Prids, witch defintly means other Hells. Poseble Fangard?_

Which when translated meant: _Sounds like Hell Prides, which definitely means other Hells. Possible Vanguard?_ I'll just translate it for you from now on.

"Are there any really big ones?" Dante enquired. The water in the bathroom stopped running.

"One bug one. But there are hundreds of other monsters. Some are like puppets -"

_Marionettes._

" - some of them even breathe _fire_ -"

_Fetishes._

" - there's lizards, flying thing with scythes, ones that look like angels, floating skills, giant chess pieces even!"

_Blades. Sin Scythes. Fallen. Sargasso. Damned Chessmen. Oh, and there _is _a Hell Vanguard. _

"And there's a giant... _blob_!" McGonagall's voice rose hysterically. Oooh, she was being pushed. Dante straightened up, attention caught. He didn't notice that blood was trickling from his lip from where he'd bitten it. The distraught Headmistress continued with her description of the 'blob'. He jotted every word down, paying special attention when she finished with: "It sucked one of our students in. He didn't come out, It was as if the thing digested him." She babbled on unheeded.

A final word was scrawled at the bottom of the page, chilling in its implications.

_Nightmare_.

(Well, Dante wrote it _Nitemare _but bad spelling rather spoils the effect. See, I bet you're smiling a bit instead of noting the ominous atmosphere that should have been created a second ago and completely ruined just now.)

He shifted in his seat, suddenly bored with the conversation and eager to hop on a plane, or boat, and head over to the UK. Dante was not a very patient man. Trish emerged from the bathroom at long last, hair completely dry. Apparently she used a spell to dry it. When he asked why she didn't just use magic to wash it somehow, she grinned and answered, "A woman needs to make sure the job's well done."

Whatever.

"Minnie," Dante interrupted, ignoring her irritated snort. "I'd love to sit here and chat all day but that's not gonna help the school. I'll leave as soon as I can, all right?" He hung up without waiting for a reply. This could be the most interesting job he'd had in a long time, over a year, since the Mallet Island incident. Incident being a bit of an understatement really, especially when you considered that the whole place had gone up in purple flames. Very pretty though, no doubt about that.

"Where are you headed?" Trish enquired, casting a futile glance at the notebook.

" UK." Dante bounded out of his chair and went into his bedroom, a curious Trish following. First rule of demon hunting - pick your weapons carefully. And another rule - make sure they won't piss you off. This particular rule applied to the twin swords, Agni and Rudra. Blades with serrated edges, one was imbued with flame and the other with wind. Okay, how would that piss you off? you might ask out, but then they'd start talking.

Unfortunately, Dante had muttered the rules to himself, under his breath, but the sharp eared swords caught them anyway.

"Brother," Agni asked slowly in a deep voice. "What does it mean, to piss someone off?"

"Brother," Rudra answered ponderously, in an equally deep voice. "Judging from our master's past use of the phrase, I would guess it is a synonym for annoying someone."

"Ah." Pause. "What is a synonym?"

"Oh _God_," Dante groaned. They really were a pair of twits, to say the least, and he only put up with the things because they had proved useful in the past. If only they didn't have verbal diarrhoea.

"I'm going on a little trip to the UK," he announced to the room at large. The other weapons scattered around calttered in response. An electric guitat lying on the bed let off a few notes and a lone bat flapped past Dante's ear. "I'm taking Rebellion, duh, Agni and Rudra - no _talking!_ - Ifrit and...hm." He trailed off. Okay, he would take either Cerberus or Nevan. Both were very useful weapons. This needed careful consideration.

"Let's see. One is a set of nunchucks with the power of ice. The other is a guitar with the power of electricity. One freezes vad guys, the other summons bats. Hm, Nevan, you're kinda losing at the moment. But here's the clincher: one used to be a giant, three-headed talking dog, the other is a succubus." Yet another grin. "Nevan wins." He reached for the guitar, intending to play a few notes in celebration.

"And why are you going?" Trish asked, leaning against the doorframe. Dante paused.

"Hogwarts, a school, needs my help. They got a demon problem and they called me."

"Mhm. Dante, be careful over there."

"Aren't I always?"

"No, I'm serious this time." And her voice was indeed very serious. Dante glanced at her surprise and reluctantly turned to face her. She'd gone into mother mode. Great. "Unexpected things may happen. I know the magical people over there... operate a little differently."

He opened his mouth to ask what the hell she was on about but decided against it. "I'll be fine, _mother_. Unexpected things always happen to me. You being one of them," he added pointedly. Her expression didn't change.

"Look I've gotta go. My guns must blaze a trail of fire and destruction and... crap like that." He began collecting his things, humming the Ghostbusters theme as he did so. The upshot of it is that Trish was right.

Woman's intuition, I guess.

A/N:_ Thanks for your reviews on the first chapter, especially my first three and ESPECIALLY Lady Luce's (your comments keep making me hyper XD). I really appreciate them. Okay, Chapter Three may be a little slower in coming, mostly because it needs careful planning and consideration. So patience, Constant Readers, and another helping of DMC/HP will be heading your way._


	3. Vroom

**Chapter Three - Vroom**

Dante pulled at his tie, which was apparently determined to cut off his air supply. This was exactly why he never wore a suit, but Trish had insisted and would not listen to his protests. It would look more believable, she had said, if a guy dragging a coffin around was dressed smartly, rather than in red leather.

As if dragging a coffin around wasn't going to attract attention anyway.

"So why exactly do you have this... uh, box with you, sir?" the security guard asked curiously. Dante glared at him through strands of white hair. The guy was just being plain nosy.

"It's my father..." He cleared his throat. "He was born in England, you see, before coming to America with my mother. He wanted to be buried in his homeland, so I'm respecting his final wishes." To the uncomfortable suit-wearing man, the story sounded extremely flimsy, but the guard bought it.

"Oh, I understand of course," he said in a tone of sympathy that highly irritated Dante. "That's a damn cool guitar by the way."

Ah yes. Dante's guitar, which was hanging on his back. It was his small way of getting back at Trish because of the suit thing. All right, it did spoil the effect, but he couldn't care less. "You think so? Custom made. She cost me a bundle."

The guard nodded his appreciation. "Yep, she's a real beauty."

_You have _no_ idea_, thought Dante, concealing a smirk. He pretended to look at his watch. "If you'll excuse me, I do have a plane to catch..."

"Yes, sir, of course. Sorry to bother you, but can't be too careful you know."

_Sure. You were just nosy, buddy. Learn when to butt out, yeah?_ The guard either missed or chose to ignore Dante's scornful glance and moved off after a group of Japanese tourists who were arguing in loud and rapid speech with a French couple. The whole building rang with talking, yelling, and screeching. Bloody airports.

Dante _hated_ airports. Far too big, with far too many people and way too many shops. The only thing he hated more than airports were the planes themselves. A fear of flying must be pretty weird for someone who took pleasure in jumping off huge towers, but when you did the jumping, you were in control. Somehow, Dante found it hard to put his trust in giant flying contraptions.

"We're bored," two voices declared from within the coffin. He kicked it viciously, not in the mood for complaints from his swords. They only protested even louder.

"_Shut up_," he ground out through his teeth. A little blonde girl, who happened to be passing at that moment, stared at him and then burst into tears. He rolled his eyes and caught sight of a screen displaying all the flights. Whoops, he had about ten minutes left to sort out his luggage.

Later, as he settled into his seat on the plane, sneaking glances at the air hostess who was vigorously pointing to the emergency exits and smiling at him, he thought that maybe this particular flight wouldn't be so bad, as long as _that_ hostess was the one who brought the food along. That was what he thought, and sincerely hoped, until the person in the next seat stirred. Dante reluctantly turned to see who his neighbour was and nearly recoiled in horror. It was the little girl... and it looked like she had forgotten her earlier scare, because now she was grinning up at him with teeth that were startlingly white. Uh oh.

"Hi!" she exclaimed brightly. Dante cast a desperate look at the man sitting on her other side, who was probably her father. But the man seemed perfectly content to let her converse with a stranger. "My name's Jill. I'm six and three quarters but I'll be seven soon and for my birthday Daddy says he'll buy me a pony. I want a pink pony. Do you like ponies? Ponies are pretty and cute, and my pony would live in my room with me and I could give it carrots!"

"That's nice," Dante said weakly. The plane shuddered suddenly. He clutched his arm rests and the knuckles whitened. This did not escape Jill.

"You're scared of flying?" she asked incredulously, but her voice was also filled with delight. "That's silly, for a grownup to be scared of flying. I'm only six and three quarters but I don't get scared. Then I'll be seven soon and for my birthday I'm getting a pink pony! Do you like ponies?"

Dante suspected the flight would last a long time.

-------

"Who exactly is Dante?" Harry asked as soon as McGonagall had replaced the phone. She gave no answer, apparently still fuming that the person on the other end of the line had hung up on her. After about ten seconds, he repeated his question. She turned round, her eyes shining with irritation. Harry hadn't known it was possible for someone to look so angry.

"He is an acquaintance of Professor Dumbledore's," she finally replied. "I believe the two met when the Professor went to America a few years ago. Dante helped him out of a rather sticky situation. Dante did visit the school once, and I have never met such a... unique... person."

Harry frowned. That really explained everything about this mysterious man who was going to solve all their problems. Not. Nobody else seemed to be satisfied by the Headmistress's meagre explanation. Eventually she realised that everyone, including the portraits, was still waiting for some sort of elaboration. ­

"Dante is not like any of us. I'm not sure that he's quite human. Look, you can all ask him yourself when he arrives."

"When will that be?" Remus asked, shooting a look out the window. The monsters were visible, prowling restlessly round the edges of the forest. There were also a couple of Death Eaters, though they kept their distance from the larger beasts.

"Tomorrow, with any luck."

"Why doesn't he just Floo over here?" Ron suggested.

"He's not a wizard. In fact, he's not particularly fond of the wizarding world. Travelling through a fireplace wouldn't appeal to him."

"But how can a Muggle deal with these things?" Harry exclaimed incredulously. "Not even the Aurors can do anything!"

McGonagall gave him a withering look. "You heard me say he is not like us?"

"Yeah but -"

"You will just have to trust both Professor Dumbledore and I on this. If I am not mistaken, you three have some semblance of lessons to attend."

------

Question: how does a guy on the back of an enormous motorbike with swords and a guitar strapped to his back, wearing fiery gauntlets, escape detection in the middle of King's Cross Station, when said station is filled with commuters?

Answer: he doesn't.

Dante carefully rolled the bike through the station, past the platforms. People cursed loudly as they noticed him and had to leap out of the way. A group of kids on a school trip gaped at him with hanging jaws. He gave them a little wave and they immediately waved back. Okay... which platform did he want? Between nine and ten or something. Nine and three quarters, wasn't it? Yeah.

"Hey, you!" Dante ignored the police officer's orders to stop, and instead revved the bike. Continuing to ignore the police officer who was now rapidly approaching, he cast his eyes round, in search of the barrier between platform nine and ten. Ah, there we go. The irate police officer arrived at his side at that moment.

"It is an offence to drive vehicles here!" the man proclaimed furiously. But he seemed a little uncertain of motorcyclist and only now did he notice the wide array of weapons. "What are _those_?" he gasped.

Dante's only answer was to accelerate.

Screams erupted, mingled with cheers from the little kids, as he blasted through the station, and then to the shock of the onlookers, he disappeared into thin air. Silence fell again, until the schoolchildren started whooping and running round, trying to find the mysterious bike.

On the other side of the ticket barrier, Dante was now exchanging hot words with the train conductor, who was adamant that the bike would not get allowed on the train. Needless to say, this rather irritated the demon hunter.

"Look, buddy, I'm taking this bike on that train. Of course it'll fit, you blockhead, just use magic!"

The conductor sniffed, metaphorical feathers ruffled. "Sir, if I had been aware of this before -"

"How was I supposed to warn you? I don't use owls, I'm not a freaking wizard. It's about time you lot just revealed yourselves to the rest of the world, it'd make life so much simpler." He didn't get a response, except for a derisive glare. Bloody _wizards_. They all thought they were so great. being able to use magic, automatically placing themselves above non-magical people. What right did they have to be so secretive? And what was going to happen when the demons grew tired of attacking a castle? What happened when they spilt out into the streets of England? The wizards just covered it all up and hoped it would go away, but Dante knew things never stayed away for long.

He shrugged. "Fine, if I can't get on that train, I guess the school will have to deal with its problems on its own." With that, he turned to leave. The conductor called him back, just as he had known he would.

"All right, bring the damn bike!"

Wizards were a pain, but they were also pitifully predictable.

------

Harry kept glancing out the tower window, but the view remained virtually unchanged, except for the position of the sun. The grounds continued to swarm with all manners of creatures. Sometimes they would begin to fight among themselves, and he would hope that the monsters would end up eradicating each other, but more came to take their place. Apart from the sheer numbers, it was the variety that disturbed him. He'd never imagined such beasts, not even in his nightmares.

"I hope this Dante person can do something," Ron said hollowly. Harry gave a grunt of agreement, not in the mood for a discussion. Especially when he felt they were living in false hope. 'This Dante person' was not a wizard! How could he defeat such enemies without the use of magic, when the Aurors's attempts had all failed?

Harry couldn't imagine it.

But Hermione could, apparently. "Even Dumbledore trusted him. Remember what McGonagall said? Dante's helped Dumbledore before. Maybe he knows some special technique."

"Yeah, something even our greatest Aurors don't know," Harry said sarcastically, breaking his silence.

"He certainly knew a lot more about those _things_ than any of us do," Hermione pointed out irritably. For the past day, she and Ron had been forced to cope with Harry's dark mood, so perhaps her irritation was understandable. "Some hope is better than none at all."

Harry just rolled his eyes and returned to his vigil by the window. Earlier, a message had been sent saying that Dante had boarded the Hogwarts Express. The train conductor was not pleased by the stranger's attitude, according to Hagrid. Since then, the trio had gone to the highest tower to keep a lookout for Dante's arrival. But Harry was determined to remain sceptical.

Suddenly a new sound reached his ears - a sort of faint throbbing growl that was not emanating from the school grounds. he sat up straighter, ignoring the others's questioning looks. It sounded like an engine, though that should have been impossible. The train couldn't be heard from all the way up here, and cars never drove anywhere near the school.

"Do you hear that?" asked Harry, straining to catch the faint rumble. It was growing louder.

"Yeah," Ron said. "What is it?"

Hermione frowned. "It's... a motorbike. But how can a motorbike be near?"

Harry began to say that he had no idea when the growl erupted into a roar and to their shock, the castle gates at the edge of the grounds flew open and an enormous motorbike blasted through, with a fierce _VROOM!!_

"What the bloody hell..." Ron left his query hanging in the air as the three of them crowded round the window to watch the newcomer blast across the grounds and straight into the thick of the monsters.

Dante could feel the adrenaline pumping through his body and he whooped in pure delight as the wind blew his hair from his face. Now this was the sort of thing he loved doing. He hadn't done anything like this in so long and had forgotten just how it felt to be rushing at your enemies as they were caught unawares.

There's no feeling like it.

When the demons finally realised that someone else had arrived and was coming _at_ them rather than running away, they did absolutely nothing for about ten seconds. That was, until Dante reached behind his back and whipped out a huge sword with startling speed and rapidly lopped off the heads of three Hell Prides, which dissolved into sand. It then took a cry of, "_Let's rock!!!!"_ before the demons worked out that they were under attack instead of being the ones doing the attacking. As one, they rushed towards the offender.

The demon slayer was not dismayed by the sea of monsters that came to meet him - he savoured the challenge. Instead of pausing to take stock, and perhaps determine tactics, he went even faster. His twin guns, Ebony and Ivory, seemed to leap into his hands. Faster than any human eye could follow, he squeezed the triggers and a hail of bullets shot at the demons, ripping them to shreds. Those which he destroyed faded into sand which was blown away by the rising wind. His red leather coat flapped out behind him as he lowered himself along the bike to decrease air resistance and to avoid the scythes which had narrowly missed his neck.

Something that resembled a puppet but was drenched in blood leaped on to the back of the bike. It raised its hands - the blades it was clutching whirred - it gave a triumphant keening, certain that the intruder's death was imminent - the cruel daggers slashed down with terrible ferocity - and met with no resistance as they passed through empty air and then became embedded in the metal of the bike. The marionette screeched as it realised its prey had disappeared.

"Where's he gone?" Harry asked frantically. A split second later, Dante reappeared, but now he was hanging in the air _above_ the bike and puppet. Harry could clearly see the insane grin on the slayer's face as his fists came crashing down - only now did Harry notice the flames licking around his arms - upon the marionette's head. With a final wail, it burst into flames, leaving the bike free for Dante to take control of once more.

"Impossible," Hermione breathed and Harry shared her sentiments. He couldn't possibly have Apparated - not only was he just a Muggle, it was impossible to do so within Hogwarts. But now Harry had begun to wonder if Dante wasn't just a Muggle... the Headmistress's words returned to him: _I'm not sure that he's quite human_. Suddenly, Harry wasn't so sure either.

Meanwhile, the demons seemed to have worked out that they were not facing defenceless children any longer. The Hells, demons of varying power and appearance, were attempting to form group together for an attack. The Blades dived underground, ready to burst through the mud when the time arose. Some of the monsters were too thick to organise a coherent attack plan - the Sin Scythes, for instance, and the Sargasso, as well as the other Marionettes.

The main problem, Dante quickly realised, was that he wanted to get inside the castle - not right away, but sometime today would be good. But the Damned Chessmen, which were giant chesspieces that could cause a lot of pain if you weren't careful, had decided to block his path to the school's door.

Well... he had a bike. As Trish had said before, whenever he got hold of a bike, it rarely lasted long. Dante decided to prove her right once more. All it needed was careful planning and -

"Pfft, planning, who needs it?" All it really needed was a vague idea and pure insanity.

Hermione worked out what Dante was up to first. She clapped both hands over her mouth. Ron glared at her. "If something interesting is going to happen, would you mind telling us?"

"Well, he -"

"He's crazy," Harry interrupted, voice filled with admiration. "Insane!"

"_Why_ is he insane?"

"Let's get down to the main doors!" With that, Harry and Hermione fled the room, footsteps already echoing. Ron's gaze flicked between the window and the room's open door before he huffed a sigh of annoyance and followed the other two.

Dante sized up the situation. A horde of chessmen congregating in front of the door. A horde of Hells making their way towards said door. And a horde of Sargasso being idiotic and flying into walls. Cool. His right index finger tapped the throttle gently. His left hand held Ebony loosely, finger curled round the trigger.

This was going to be _fun_.

"Let's get this party started!!" he suddenly whooped. In the same instant, he gave the throttle a sharp twist, revelling in the throaty roar the engine gave. Also at the same moment, he flourished his gun, made it spin round his finger. _Let's go. _

Never having encountered a motorbike before, much less a motorbike ridden by a madman, the demons were rather perturbed to see some roaring thing bearing down upon them. The first ones were tossed aside as leaves on the wind. A couple managed to teleport out the way. Those that did not escape the bike were mown down by deadly flashes of metal - bullets fired from a demon slayer's gun. Scary.

Phase one of the admittedly sketchy plan was complete - take out a bunch of the monsters. Now entering phase two - get over the bunch of monsters.

_Vroom!_

Dante quickly pulled the handlebars of the motorbike up, leaning backwards, so that the front wheel left the ground. A very admirable wheelie, though the demons didn't realise that of course. The Damned Pawns were waking up - he could see their stone swords beginning to glow red instead of blue. He put on another burst of speed.

The engine coughed.

"Uh oh," Dante mumbled, not actually concerned with the state of the bike. It just meant the plan would need a little revising. In fact, he quickly decided he preferred the new plan. Much more smashing involved.

He stood up, his exceptional sense of balance ensuring that he didn't fall off. The engine wheezed in protest. The demons saw an opportunity to inflict damage. The Damned Chessmen moved forward, ready to attack. And Dante bent his knees, grinned, and leaped.

The bike continued in a perfectly straight line. That was, until it collided with the first three rows of Chessmen (which consisted of nine pawns, two castles, a queen, a bishop or two and a knight) where the explosion blasted all the pieces into so much jagged rock. Anything else in the vicinity was immediately vaporised. Not bad, eh?

In the meantime, Dante had calculated his jump _precisely_ so that - okay, that was a lie, it was pure luck that he jumped high enough to clear the blast, not that it would have mattered anyway. Unfortunately, he had completely forgotten about the inevitable shrapnel, and just as he landed on the other side right in front of the school doors, the exhaust pipe went through his back and protruded through his stomach.

It was at this exact moment that the doors opened to a high scream. Even in his bloody, stabbed-by-exhaust-pipe state, Dante couldn't help rolling his eyes at the unnecessary female hysteria.

"Look!" Hermione cried (always her, isn't it?) in horror. The man, whom they all knew now to be Dante - duh - stumbled forward into the Entrance Hall. Lupin quickly locked the doors again with a flick of his wand. Dante toppled over, blood spurting from his wound. Harry, Ron and Hermione hung back as Lupin dropped to his knees and examined the still form, searching a pulse at the wrist.

He said grimly, "I can't find a pulse. I don't think there's anything we can do."

"You mean..." Harry began but trailed off as he heard a noise nobody had expected.

It was laughter.

Dante sat up and plucked the exhaust out, the hole in his stomach thankfully concealed by blood. Just imagine Hermione's reaction if she'd seen his guts. They stared at him wordlessly.

"The looks on your faces!" he exclaimed in delight, then threw his head back and burst into laughter.

_A/N: Hey guys. Sorry about taking so long to write this bit, I've not had much time on my hands thanks to school . Still, holidays soon! YAY!_


	4. In the Room of Requirement

_A/N: Sorry about the belated update. Took me a while to write this because I wasn't sure what was gonna happen, and I'm convinced it has a 'placeholder' feel, but Lady Luce assured me this is not so, so okay... _

_Vergil: By the way, Dante gets drunk, I am afraid. Lock up the mops._

_Dante: That was one time!_

_Vergil: Yes, which means you might do it again_

_Uh, let's end this note before the twins tear each other apart at the WRONG TIME._

_Vergil: I get to tear him apart later?_

_In a manner of speaking. Shut up. _

**Chapter Four - In the Room of Requirement**

Once more the Great Hall rang with conversation, all of it focusing on the mysterious stranger who had arrived yesterday. Everyone kept shooting glances at Dante, who was leaning back in his chair with his boots resting on top of the table, much to McGonagall's consternation, who also kept shooting glances at him, though hers were full of irritation rather than admiration. The first year boys in particular had enjoyed his antics.

"He's the weirdest person I've ever met," Harry noted, rather sourly. He wasn't sure exactly what he thought of the stranger, and his uncertainty currently displayed itself as blatant distaste.

Hermione, on the other hand, seemed unable to keep her eyes off him for more than a few seconds at a time. "He was very brave, taking on all those monsters by himself." At this, Ron sniggered.

"Yeah, very brave. Whereas you screamed your head off."

She tore her sight from Dante to give Ron a disapproving frown. "Well, he did have a chunk of metal sticking out of him." And then she returned to her vigil. Harry scowled, which did not escape Ron's notice.

"Look, mate, I don't know what you've got against the guy. He's helping us."

"I know but - Hermione, you're spilling your tea, put the cup down if you want to carry on ogling - but he's not normal. He's completely different from the rest of us."

"Hey, newsflash: you're not normal either."

"Yeah, I've got that, thanks!" Harry answered heatedly. "You know what I mean!"

"All right, I know what you mean. When he pulled that thing out of him just like that..."

Despite loud protests and grumbles, Lupin had practically frogmarched Dante to the hospital wing after yesterday's little episode. Madam Pomfrey examined him extensively (Dante had his own views on why it had been so lengthy) but eventually proclaimed, though dumbfounded, that nothing was amiss. He was perfectly healthy. He refused to answer any questions, leaving the cause of his swift healing to open debate, and instead asked for a drink. After declining all offers of pumpkin juice or water, Madam Pomfrey asked in exasperation what he wanted.

"Booze. Not wine though, hate that stuff. Beer's great. And pizza too."

"This is a _school_," the nurse replied stiffly. When he'd realised that schools generally did not stock beer, Dante had apparently thrown a tantrum worthy of a three year old before settling bad-temperedly for tomato juice. All in all, Dante was indeed very... strange.

Harry watched him sideways (rather than stare at him full-on, like Hermione) and wondered what Dante was. How on earth could he be a Muggle, if he'd felt no ill effects at all? It suggested some kind of personal healing spell, though Harry wasn't certain that was possible, and McGonagall had said he disliked magic anyway...

Dante stood up suddenly, and Harry thought he noticed a slight swaying as he stood. He was immediately suspicious, as always. And determined to find out more, as always. And once more, he forgot that nosing about got him into trouble, like always. Still, this time, he wouldn't let the other two come with him - Hermione was quite plainly in love with the guy, and Ron was lost in awe. It was enough to make anyone sick. His eyes watched the demon hunter carefully as he left the staff table, movements rather exaggerated, as if he was trying to take extra care. Verrrry suspicious.

Harry waited a couple of minutes after Dante's departure, stood up, informed the others that he was returning to the common room, and left the Great Hall. There he pulled out the Marauder's Map, crumpled as it was, and almost immediately spotted a tiny dot labelled 'Dante'. Funny... he didn't seem to have a surname. Harry shrugged, unconcerned with this tiny detail, instead noticing that the dot seemed unable to travel in a straight line. With a jolt, he suddenly realised where it was heading, he'd been there often enough himself - the Room of Requirement!

Sneaky.

It took only a minute or so for Harry to navigate the shortcuts hidden behind various tapestries and paintings until he had emerged in the corridor where the Room was. According to the map, Dante wasn't far off but now Harry noticed that he was moving unusually quickly, even if he'd been running. In fact, he was certain that nobody could move that quickly... he started pacing up and down, map held right in front of his nose. He spun on his heel to start walking the other way and -

"Oof!"

That was Harry, being extremely articulate as usual, as he had all the wind knocked out of him and he tumbled over as something collided with him. The something quickly turned out to be an extremely irritated Dante, who grabbed the younger's arm without a word and dragged him through the door which had just appeared in the wall. It wasn't until they were both inside and Dante had deposited Harry that either of them spoke.

"What the hell was that all about?" Harry said furiously, standing up and brushing himself down. Dante looked at him with eyes that did not appear entirely in focus.

"What the hell," he answered, gesturing expansively with his arms, "are _you_ all about?"

"What?"

"What what?"

And this guy was going to save them all, Harry thought scornfully. It seemed that the older man had realised how idiotic he sounded and sought to rectify this. He cleared his throat.

"Lish.. I mean, _listen_. I didn't want thish for either of ush..." His choice of words were really not helping matters. Start again. "I'm being shtalked, okay?"

Harry pulled a sceptical face, noting the slur in Dante's voice. "Stalked, right."

His disbelief clearly annoyed the demon slayer. "I AM! There's these three girls who keep following me!" His outrage had banished the slur from his voice. "One of them has extremely long hair and keeps muttering about how much she adores and loves me and once I definitely heard her wonder what I looked like without my shirt! And the other girl, she seems to hate me or something, all _she_ can do is criticise my hair. What's wrong with my hair, I ask you?" Harry thought it tactful to shrug and make no audible comment. "And the last girl, she trails behind the other two, informing them that they're insane and stupid and should quit stalking me."

It was all Harry could do to stop himself laughing. "Er... what year are they in?"

Dante glowered. "They're fifteen or thereabouts." And he subsided into muttering.

"_Any_way," Harry persisted. "You're definitely drunk. And you shouldn't know about this place. So where'd you get the alcohol and who told you about this room?" As he spoke, he heard a noise and turned to see a six pack of beer appear on a nearby table. He looked back at Dante grimly, who crossed his arms mulishly.

"Why should I tell you? You're jusht a kid. I -" more gestures "- am a greatly reshpected demon shlayer and -"

"A drunken demon slayer, yeah, really respected."

"Look, drink helps me live my life happily. If you _insist_ on being a nosy bastard, it was the house elves who gave me some of that Butterbeer crap, but you can_not _get drunk on it, though I damn well tried."

"You found the kitchens?"

"Yep, those stalkers were happy enough to point them out to me." Harry made a mental note to find those girls and warn them against following this guy. "As I was saying, the midgets in there -"

"House elves."

"- the midgets gave me Butterbeer and then I said I needed stronger stuff, so _then_ one of them told me about this place!" He beamed at the beer. "Before breakfast I spent two hours in here," he added, a look of pure bliss on his face.

"It shows," Harry assured him. "But you can't get drunk, not if you're supposed to be helping us."

"I did help. Now shut up and let me drink myself stupid. Because then I can imagine that I am surrounded by beautiful girls, instead of talking to a midgety teenager." With that, he snatched up the cans, opened two and started chugging them like there was no tomorrow.

"But -" Harry broke off as he was offered one of the unopened cans. He batted it away impatiently. "You don't mean that's all you're going to be doing?"

The look Dante threw him was one of pure contempt. "Oh yeah. Leave a bunch of wizards to fight the demons. What do you take me for? I might be drunk but I'm not a fool."

Slightly put out, Harry simply watched as the cans were rapidly emptied of their contents. He found himself without any more cutting questions to ask, something which Dante was extremely grateful for. Instead, he fell back on plaintive questions. "How were you moving so fast out there? It's impossible to run that quickly without magic."

"There's more than one kind of magic. Demons have magic too, did you know that?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're an idiot because you have no idea what it means. Happy?"

"No. Look, who _are _you? Nobody knows anything about you, except you helped Dumbledore out of a tight spot once and you're good at killing things."

The older man rolled his eyes. "I'm Dante. That's all you need to know." His short sharp answers gave Harry absolutely no leverage.

"But... what are you then?"

"There we go, sensible questions at last." Dante reached behind his back. Harry flinched, expecting a sword, but it was just a guitar. A very nice one though. "I'll tell you something. I'm nothing like any of you lot, not even Voldything. You can all do magic, big deal. What _I _can do is far cooler and much more useful. And that is all you will ever need to know, got it? Oh yeah..." He took a swig of beer and continued in a rather pensive voice. "Piesh... piece of advice for you, kid."

"Which would be?" Harry said, slightly hopeful that it would be something useful.

"If I catch you following me again, you will regret it. I don't care if you're the Chosen One, okay? What I'm really trying to say is: stay the hell out of my business. Now piss off before I throw this can at you."

As he did not particularly want a can thrown at him, Harry beat a very hasty retreat. He heard a few notes being strummed on the guitar as he left the room and nearly collided with someone else. It was a group of three girls. Two were arguing heatedly and the other was throwing in scornful comments. The stalkers, Harry supposed, and his guess was confirmed as the argument moved on to Dante's hair, of all things. He decided against talking to them now and returned instead to Gryffindor Tower, where he discovered Ron and Hermione doing homework. Which of course meant that Hermione was doing Ron's homework, while Ron himself practised chess.

"Ron, honestly, we did poisons and antidotes last year. Didn't you take any notes?"

"Why, is my essay that bad?"

"Quite... oh, hi Harry. Where've you been?"

"Talking to Dante," Harry replied, disliking the expression on Hermione's face.

"Really? You could have said, I'd love to talk to him -"

Harry quickly cut across her; he could see that Ron was not pleased with this newfound obsession with the demon slayer. "Yeah, I know. But he's not that great, he's bloody drunk." He told them how he'd literally bumped into Dante and about the conversation that had followed. By the end, an expression of distaste had crept on to Hermione's face, which cheered Ron up no end. But to Harry's disappointment, neither of them seemed particularly upset by his news.

"There's not really much we can do about it," Ron pointed out. "He's the only person who's been able to kill any of the things. We need him, drunk or not."

"Yeah, _but _- "

"I know what the problem is Harry," said Hermione suddenly. "You don't like him being the centre of attention for once."

Harry spluttered as she pressed on. "You're so used to being the hero, you don't like seeing someone else save the day for once. Don't worry about it," she added as he made to interrupt. "It's quite normal really." Harry looked to Ron for help, but Ron only shrugged and nodded slightly.

"You think I've got... _hero withdrawal_, is that it?" Harry said in disbelief. They both nodded, Ron a little reluctantly. "All right. Think what you want. See you later." With that he left the room, pride well and truly wounded. He barely spoke to either of them for the rest of the day and went to bed that night, having passed fewer than ten words with them.

He woke up the next morning to the news that another student had been killed.


	5. A Meeting of Two Minds

**Chapter Five - A Meeting of Two Minds**

Dante's eyes followed the back of the kid's head as he left. He hated kids. Most of the time they were just a nuisance and of absolutely no help at all. And exorcising demons out of them was never fun - you usually had the parents nearby, freaking out when they saw the demon trying to resist. Still, it was just as well that most demons despised possessing kids. Way too small and weak.

Anyway he really didn't want to be thinking about that right now. He had his very own personal bar. And entertainment too.

"Come on out Nevan," he said to the apparently empty room. The only other occupant was the guitar and it seemed that he was talking to the instrument. But if Harry had stuck around, he would have been amazed to see the guitar glow a bright purple and slowly grow, morphing into what at first appeared to be a human woman. Then you noticed that her skin had a strange greenish tinge, that her skirt seemed to be made from bats, that her eyes glowed a piercing red, and she was only decent because of her long red hair which fell over her breasts.

"A pity you didn't let him hang around, sugar," Nevan said thoughtfully. "I'd have loved to meet him."

Dante nearly choked on his beer. "Are you kidding? He looked like he hardly knew what a woman was. If he'd seen you he would have run screaming in the opposite direction."

The corners of the succubus's mouth twitched in amusement. "I think you're right honey. How drunk are you now then?"

Dante tipped the can upside down and watched a few golden drops spill out. "Drunk enough I reckon," he answered with a grin, throwing the can to one side and stepping forward and -

_Crack!_

"Aw what the hell _now?_" Dante exclaimed furiously. Standing between him and Nevan was a bundle of clothes which looked suspiciously familiar. It made a sketchy bow, the orange hat on top slipping forward, and spoke in a high squeaky voice. Damn. One of the midgets from the kitchens.

"Dobby is very pleased to have found Master Dante!" came the house-elf's cheerful voice.

"Master Dante is not pleased to have been found," Master Dante muttered sullenly, catching Nevan's smirk. Dobby was undeterred by his quarry's lack of enthusiasm and pressed on with the message.

"Professor McGonagall requests Master Dante's presence in her office at once! She is wanting to discuss the bad things, sir. We house-elves is very scared of the bad things! But now sir has come to help and -"

"Sir," interrupted Dante, "will only help if Dobby goes away right now and leaves sir alone." This curt reply threw the little thing off-balance. Finding nothing more to say, it bowed again, repositioned the orange hat, and disappeared with another loud _crack_. Dante glanced round and saw that Nevan had decided to return to her guitar form. He snatched it up bad-temperedly, his plans ruined for today at least. No doubt McGonagall wanted to go over tactics or something, having failed to do so the previous day.

As he stamped out of the room, slamming the door shut, he heard giggling from somewhere. The stalkers. After a few seconds he pinpointed the source and ripped back a tapestry to reveal a trio of girls, though only two were actually laughing - the third was shooting thunderous glares at them. The laughter quickly faded as they realised that they'd been rumbled.

"So you actually have nothing better to do than to follow me about?" he said pointedly and let the tapestry fall back into place, covering their shocked (and in one case, delighted) faces. Then he carried on, deciding that he'd best put Nevan back in his room and take Rebellion instead. He rather doubted that McGonagall would be impressed by a purple guitar.

Yesterday, while he prowled round the hospital wing, unable to leave despite protesting that he was fine, the Headmistress had taken the opportunity to corner Dante and have a serious discussion with him. She obviously had not realised that he wasn't in the mood for a discussion, and to make it harder she had brought Hagrid along. Instead of being serious, Dante had immediately greeted the giant in delight.

"Hey Hagrid, how are you, you overgrown monster?" Dante asked in delight. Fortunately Hagrid was used to the demon hunter's affectionate teasing and clapped him on the back, rather than pummel him into the ground.

"How are yeh, Dante? I hear yeh gave Hermione a right scare with tha' bike stunt."

"I did not plan that. The exhaust pipe was an accident, I don't exactly enjoy having rusty bits of metal poking through my stomach. What's happening with Norbert?"

"I had ter send little Norbert away," Hagrid answered mournfully, sniffing a little, overcome with memories of the cute little Norwegian Ridgeback. "Not really supposed to have dragons as pets."

McGonagall cleared her throat, apparently unimpressed by this discussion of law-breaking. Dante rolled his eyes at Hagrid, who shrugged, grinning a little sheepishly through his beard. The Headmistress launched into a speech that sounded as if she'd been practising; Dante had to resist the temptation to point this out to her.

"Dante," she began, remembering not to put 'Mr' in front, "firstly I suppose I should thank you for your work yesterday. Although I would prefer you to be a little more subtle about it next time. If you carry on like that, you'll traumatise the children more than the monsters themselves."

"That's funny, I think I heard cheering yesterday," Dante said drily.

Choosing to ignore this, she pressed on. "I wished to discuss with you how more can be done to destroy these things. One man cannot do it all alone -" she again ignored his snort of disagreement "- but we need to know how exactly you killed those things."

It was a tactical discussion she wanted, Dante realised. Unfortunately, he was not in the mood to help wizards - that guy at the train station had not put him in the best of moods, and the subtle implication that he was not up to the job had only worsened it. It was probably just as well that Madam Pomfrey chose this moment to ask if Dante wanted anything, thus causing his tantrum at the discovery of the lack of alcohol.

So, Dante thought as he entered his room, Minnie probably wanted her tactical discussion right now. Impatient sort, she was. He cast an eye round the bedroom, remembering how someone had forgotten to put a bed in there at first. There was now a large four poster bed, leaving little room for his wordly possessions. Agni and Rudra had immediately noticed the lack of space when Dante had leant them against the wall.

"Master, I think you should ask for a larger room," Agni had suggested.

"Yes! We swords need plenty of leg room," Rudra had added. Dante had then pointed out that they did not legs, which rather took the wind out of their sails. Thereafter they contented themselves with complaining whenever Dante left the room without them, which they started as soon as he put Nevan down and instead picked up Rebellion. Ebony and Ivory were placed into their holsters. At least McGonagall wouldn't be able to claim he wasn't prepared. Walking out again, he slammed the door behind him, cutting short the voices of the twin swords. He carried on, head bowed, having just realised that there would still be alcohol on his breath. Minnie wasn't going to be pleased by that. He'd just have to stop breathing around her -

"Is that a big sword or are you just happy to see me?"

Dante froze at the sound of the cackling voice which was familiar in a way he certainly did not like. Turning round slowly, he caught sight of something floating in the air that might have been a ghost but definitely wasn't. For one thing, all the other ghosts pretty much ignored Dante, except for the one with a loose head - it kept nodding to him if they passed and the loose head would fall off.

"I remember you," Dante said accusingly, glaring. "You're Peeves!"

"Wowee, isn't he _smart_!"

"Last time I was here you tried to nick my coat!"

Peeves puffed out his cheeks and blew out hard, as if thinking hard about something. "Well, Peeves thought that as you were already showing off your chest, maybe Mr Dante would be better off without the coat at all."

"Right, very thoughtful of you Peeves. Piss off."

For an insane moment, Dante thought the poltergeist might actually bugger off without needing further convincing. Sadly, it was not to be. Without warning, Peeves swooped down with a delighted cackle and plucked Rebellion from Dante's back. He ignored the furious shouts from Dante and flew even higher, taking the sword out of reach for the moment.

"Give that _back_!"

"Not safe to be carrying big swords round little kiddies," Peeves called down tauntingly, now swinging the weapon round in huge sweeps, only just missing the walls.

"You goddamn son of a bitch -!"

"Swearing shows a lack of vocabulary!"

As they say, desperate times call for desperate measures and Dante felt the situation was indeed desperate. He counted to ten in his head slowly and before he'd reached five, he had pulled out Ebony and was aiming it right between Peeves's beady eyes. The poltergeist paused, aware that a bullet between the eyes would be very painful indeed.

"Yeah, that's right," said Dante, trying to stop his voice shaking in rage. "I'm gonna count to three and you're gonna give that back before I reach three, or you are gonna be in a world of pain, buddy."

Peeves seemed to have frozen, except for his mouth, which was opening and closing.

"One."

The sword still hung in the air, gripped by the small hand.

"_Two._"

At last Peeves seemed to be having doubts.

"Three!"

"Have it!" Peeves cried shrilly, dropping the sword at once. "Peeves didn't want the stupid thing anyway." Dante quickly replaced Ebony in its holster and caught Rebellion with the same hand. He glanced up as Peeves zoomed away, wailing furiously at having been thwarted. With that little adventure behind him, Dante shook his head, more in despair than anything else, and continued on his way with another challenge in front of him - that of not being drunk in front of Minnie.

After rounding the last corner and coming face to face with the gargoyle that blocked the way, he sullenly mumbled the password Minnie had given him yesterday. Somehow it heard him and leapt to the side, revealing the spiral staircase. He stepped forward, tapping his foot as it slowly rose up to the Headmistress's office. He paused before entering, straightening his jacket sleeves and failing miserably, and then went inside. Minnie was sat at her desk and glanced up as he came in. With a curt nod, she gestured for him to sit opposite. Dante ignored the instruction and instead wandered over to a large gold-framed portrait which was hanging on a wall. The other portraits watched him curiously, remembering the arrogant red clothed demon hunter from last time. But he paid no attention to the other pictures and instead addressed the newest one.

"Well well Dumbly, how'd you get in there? Maybe if I cut it up, you could get out, hm?"

The eyes of the deceased Headmaster twinkled in amusement. Dante still found it strange that these pictures could show such life-like details, though he found it stranger still that Dumbledore really was dead. He still remembered their meeting - Dante had been about seventeen, a year or so before Temen-Ni-Gru. He'd been meandering uselessly vague ideas for business swirling through his mind though few ever got past the "what if" stage. It was around this time that he'd noticed the weird old man with a ridiculously long beard, who would walk the streets, as if with no particular aim in mind except to drink in the sights.

One night Dante, who'd been stretched out on Enzo's couch and slurping tomato juice, had heard demonic screeching from just outside the window. In a flash he was out there, sword in hand, guns at the ready. To his surprise, he discovered that the demons's quarry had been the old man. Even more surprising, the stranger was not cowering in fear, but instead was apparently examining the things which were about to slice him up.

"_Extraordinary_," the man had muttered, peering at the nearest Hell Pride. Just as Dante was about to shout a warning, the man pulled out a long thin stick and Dante realised the guy was a wizard. Much good it would do him. The wizard also saw this when his spell had absolutely no effect on the demon, which swung its scythe back, ready to tear flesh.

As it whipped through the air with a sickening whistle, Rebellion flashed and the demon's weapon fell apart, cleaved in two. The inhuman screeches resounded with shock as the deadly sword made short work of the other monsters, and Ebony and Ivory got in on the act too, firing white hot bullets into grotesque flesh. Not once during the spectacle did the old man flinch and with incredulity Dante saw a little smile on the wizard's face.

The first words Albus Dumbledore said to the demon hunter were, "_I am most certainly in your debt. Is there any way that I can repay you?_"

Sheathing Rebellion, Dante raised an eyebrow. "_For one thing, I'm wondering why an old guy would be so stupid to try and fight against demons with just a frigging wand._"

And on these grounds, a very unlikely friendship grew. Dumbledore explained who he was and where he'd come from. He had simply taken a trip to America to meet a few friends, but had managed to get lost. He still had not found his friends but had decided to remain in this town. This was supposed to be his last day in America, until he'd encountered the demons.

For his part, Dante had avoided saying very much about himself, other than the fact that he hunted devils and was trying to set up a demon-hunting business, or would be as soon as Enzo got off his fat ass and found him a decent place. The two men, very young and very old, eventually said goodnight to each other, wondering if they'd meet once more. As it turned out, it was over a year later before they made contact, long after Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts and Dante had resealed the gate to Hell.

And now for the third time they met and one of them was an oil painting. Life just doesn't get any weirder than that, my friends.

"That is a very kind offer, my dear boy, but I rather think it wouldn't work. It's good to see you again." Here Dumbledore lowered his voice a little, so that Professor McGonagall would not hear. "I see you have been... indulging yourself, shall we say?"

In an equally conspiratorial voice, Dante muttered, "Yeah, you're right, don't tell her. Anyway, I was interrupted by some smartass who followed me."

"Might this, er, pupil have been Harry Potter?"

"I dunno, black hair and weird scar. You stop paying attention after the twelfth can."

"I can only imagine," answered Dumbledore gravely, his voice returning to normal level. He looked at something behind Dante. Turning Dante found himself almost face to face with Minnie. He hurriedly stopped breathing, hoping that she would not catch a whiff of drink. When she still refused to move, he leant back a little, and said pointedly, "Look, Minnie, I know you like me and all but you really can_not_ invade my personal space like this."

A quiet chortle from behind his back. McGonagall's face bleached o all colour, with a very thin line where her lips were. To Dante's enormous relief, she stepped away and returned to her desk. Tipping a sly wink at Dumbledore, Dante did take a seat this time, lounging as much as possible, aware it would irritate the uptight woman even more.

"Dante," she began frostily. "While I am grateful for what you've done, you obviously cannot do it alone -"

_Wanna bet? _he thought moodily.

"- so, you need to tell us what we can do to help."

"Oh, well now." Dante cracked his knuckles loudly. "You've never asked me anything so nicely, so I guess I will tell you." He leant his head back, biting at his lip again. "First of all, as a witch, you're pretty much useless. No let me rephrase that, it'll offend you less. Almost all of your _spells_ would be useless. For one thing, demons have their own magic and _your_ magic doesn't work on the same... um, frequency, if you get me." Without waiting to see if she did get him, he carried on: "Anyway, your magic doesn't have the right effect. I bet you've mostly been using things to send them to sleep or whatever it is you do."

"Stunning Spells," she corrected. "I know that one Auror attempted the Killing Curse but that had no effect on any demons."

Dante nodded. "Yeah, that's right. What you need to remember is that these demons aren't alive in the normal sense of the word, not the ones you've seen so far anyway. They're more spirits taken on a solid form in order to be able to kill things. It's the spirit that needs destroying, but to do _that_, you need to get rid of its solid form. Best way to do that is just rip it to pieces, which is why I am so damn good."

McGonagall frowned a little at his show of immodesty, but seemed to understand what he'd been saying. "That means spells like _Reducto_ would work then?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. You're the witch round here. Thing is, if you destroy the demon's form, it needs to find something else to inhabit quickly or it'll just fade away, unless it's a particularly strong demon, in which case it might take a new form by itself. My guitar for example." She hadn't met Nevan yet so that statement went over her head. "Sometimes the demon'll try to possess someone, but that's rare and only if it's really desperate and the person is completely unaware.

"So what it boils down to is that you lot will _still_ be useless."

Oh the Headmistress wasn't very happy about that. Some of the portraits muttered among themselves, unimpressed by this stranger's pure arrogance. "And why is that?" she asked coldly.

"One," Dante said, holding up a single finger, "none of you can use swords, can you? Two -" he raised another finger "- you'd probably get in my way. And _three_," he finished, a third finger lifting, "you still won't trust me, will you?"

For a second he thought she was going to deny it hotly but of course she wasn't. Instead, she said furiously, "I certainly do not trust you. I barely know who you are, I don't even know if you are human - how on earth did you survive that incident yesterday?"

He folded his arms mulishly. "You don't _need_ to know. You just need to know that I'm helping you -"

"Oh yes. You're making a fine job of helping us. I know that you have been drinking, Dante." Uh oh, he thought he'd gotten away with that. Dumbledore tried to interject but McGonagall overrode him. "And frankly I do not think you suitable for this task! And what guarantee do I have that you are indeed helping _us_?"

Dante stood up suddenly, anger flaming in his bright eyes. In them, McGonagall thought she caught a hint of _other_ - the other thing, whatever it was, that made him so different. Rather than yelling at her, Dante lowered his voice to a dangerous level, much worse than any towering rage, his fury almost electrifying the air surrounding him. She almost fancied that she could see bright red sparks flashing.

"I see how it is. You still don't get it, do you? You think I'm here to help _you_? Let me tell you something - you could rot in here for all I care. If it was you, I'd let you get on with it. If it was just a bunch of witches and wizards, I would leave them _all_ to work it out for themselves. That's what you usually do, isn't it? But I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for the kids in this castle who have _no idea what's happening_. You have eleven year olds here who are practically Muggles, they've never done magic properly and now they're faced with something that haunts only the worst nightmares, monsters that nobody could imagine. _That's_ why I'm here, McGonagall, and if you can't see it, I can't help you."

She simply stared at him wordlessly as he left the office, slamming the door behind him. Only Dumbledore spoke, everyone else stunned into silence.

"Minerva, I asked you to trust both Dante and I. You failed to do so and now he will _not_ forgive you, for a very long time." No answer.

"It doesn't matter, Albus," she replied eventually. "I have another avenue open to me... I'll just need the telephone again."

--------

This time nobody disturbed Dante as he stalked through the corridors. His anger had subsided into a cold resentment. Just like every other witch and wizard he'd met. They never trusted anything if they could help it. They only ever wanted to rely on their magic. But when that failed, they were lost... he thought of the 'purebloods'. What in hell was so great about being a pureblood wizard anyway? From his point of view, it seemed to be the Muggles who'd learnt how to survive. If it was a Muggle school in this situation, something would have been done by now...

He shoved open random doors and eventually found himself striding toward some outer door or other that would lead him onto the Quidthing pitch. Walking outside, it seemed that the demons had chosen to remain out at the front, guarding the main entrance, meaning that the pitch was devoid of any life. The large goals, like bubble blowing wands, rose above him. They would provide a pretty good observation point, he'd be able to see most of the grounds from up there. It took Dante about ten seconds to get up the highest one, a case of scrabbling up quickly, barely using his hands and simply running up.

Another mistake Minnie had made, Dante reflected as he sat in the hoop and scanned the darkening grounds, was to assume that he would not be able to defeat the demons. He'd been through far worse: Temen-Ni-Gru hadn't exactly been a cup of tea and Mallet Island had been crawling with the things. This absolute lack of faith in him had not been encouraging and he knew that if she would not trust him, she would not listen to him. And not listening could condemn most of the kids, including the youngest, to an untimely death.

But maybe he was being a bit harsh. Anyone would have been freaked out by the bike thing and she was right about the human thing too. Yet he didn't want to tell them what he was. It'd probably worry them even more and anyway, he wanted to avoid all questions about himself. It was usually best to keep quiet when possible. Still...

"I guess I'll try and make it up with her," he muttered to himself. "If only for the kids's sakes..."

Having made the decision, he jumped down from the hoop, landing lightly on the soft grass with his knees bent.

It was then that he heard the first ear-splitting scream of pure terror. There was another shriek and this one was cut off suddenly, leaving an ominous silence

-----------------------------------------

_A/N: Hey guys! Really, really sorry about the loooooooooong wait. This is the thing with posting stories online, you get writer's block and then people are left waiting, but I apologise! _

_Dante: She's just making excuses, she's been out boozing._

_Liar. Anyway, I've been reading your reviews, which I appreciate so please keep leaving them! I don't know who said this stuff, but yeah:_

_Someone asked about Trish/Lady/Vergil. Lady will be appearing, as will Trish, and maybe Vergil too. However, Lucia will not be in this fic as she appears in DMC2, and this takes place about a year after DMC1. _

_Someone said that they didn't think Harry would be annoyed about Dante. I see where you're coming from, but I think it's more that Harry feels it is HIS responsibility to defeat Voldemort, and that might mean defeating the demons too. He's been stuck in Hogwarts for ages, unable to do anything and then Dante just waltzes in, sweeping away the monsters. Even I might be annoyed if someone seemed to be doing my job. _

_About typos... heh, this is stupid of me, but when I re-read my own work, I never notice them, I don't have a spellchecker as I don't have Microsoft Word. And I don't like re-reading my stuff sometimes... Lady Luce will understand, as some of you other guys who write stories may do too._

_And finally, I seriously do appreciate your feedback, it tells me that I must be doing something right. If you see a problem, just tell me, even if it is about typos. If you want something included, you can ask about that, I might see what I can do, depends if it fits into my plot._

_Vergil: Which is rather sketchy at the moment, a little like Dante's plans._

_Dante: eating pizza Hey, wha' dichoo shay?_

_Uh huh, thanks for that ringing endorsement Vergil. Remind me to tighten your chains later._

_Dante: snigger_

_And you're not getting off lightly either, did you see Shadow's latest avatar? _

_Dante/Vergil: Uh..._

_ANYway, this is Elata over and out, until Chapter Six! I'm back at school now, but I will try and write a bit quicker. You guys deserve it after the nice reviews I got. _

_Dante: Vergil... do I want to know what that avatar is?_

_Vergil: To be honest, probably not. _

_Oh and I completely made up the demon thing myself. If you see any problems with it, then tell me. I thought it wasn't too bad, myself :P_


	6. Too Late

**Chapter Six - Too Late**

_Dante had heard the phrase 'deafening silence' before but only now did he fully understand its meaning. It seemed to beat at his ears and mind, gently mocking him. He could hear his blood rushing and pounding. Thoughts chased each other, racing round like greyhounds, allowing him no peace at all. _You failed, you let the kid... shouldn't have... failed... couldn't save her... you failed... DEAD! _He looked up quickly, certain someone must have said that out loud. But the silence was only broken by hiccuping sobs and gasps. _

_He couldn't stay here much longer. The office might be big but he still knew that the walls were closing in on him, squeezing the air and life out the room and him too. They were going to cut him off. Claustrophobia was a new feeling for the demon slayer and one he did not like at all. _

_Finally McGonagall cleared her throat. Everyone turned their gaze on her, except for the two fifth year girls - one standing in the corner, staring out the window with a curiously blank expression; the other sat on McGonagall's chair, knees drawn up, hands over her face, body trembling with each fresh sob. _

_"Beverly," the Headmistress said softly. The girl raised her face to show tear-streaked cheeks and swollen, red eyes. "I want you to tell me exactly what happen. Why did you go outside?"_

_"I - I - I didn't want - wasn't - not _my _idea!" Beverly gasped out, her voice croaking. "I didn't want to! I tried to - to stop them but they just wouldn't, I tried!"_

_Dante lowered his eyes, not wanting to look at the distraught girl. _

_"I know you tried," McGonagall said, doing her best to reassure the girl. "But I really do need you to tell everyone in the room."_

_An audible swallow. Beverly continued in a trembling voice. "They were talking about looking for..." She cast a glance at Dante. "They had no idea where he was. I didn't care, I told them, I didn't -"_

--------

"- think this is a good idea. Seriously." Beverly flicked her hair out her eyes as she glared at her friends. Admittedly, Nichola did not appear quite as excited as Holly. Still, neither of them seemed to be able to stop talking about the bloody demon hunter and it just got a little irritating after a while. Nichola grinned back at Beverly, apparently oblivious of her irritation.

"Come _on_. It'll be a laugh, right? And then Holly will be able to beg him for his autograph or something -"

"No!" Holly looked stricken. "Only if you do too."

"Fine, we'll ask him for his autograph. And then you ask for his number!"

As the pair lapsed into helpless laughter, Beverly rolled her eyes in exasperation. There really was nothing to be done. She supposed she would have to put up with it, at least until Dante left. Then again, nobody knew when that might be, with those horrible things crawling around outside the castle. One of the pupils who'd been killed had been in their year - Louisa something. While Beverly had not particularly liked the girl, the shock of it had made her realise how serious the situation was. Hence why she did not appreciate this hysteria.

Holly and Nichola had finally caught their breath. "'Kay, let's go now!" Holly proclaimed. Nichola nodded vigorously. Beverly narrowed her eyes.

"Well, if you don't wanna come Bev, you can go back to the common room yourself..."

Bev sighed. "All right, I'll come then. But only because the Ravenclaw common room is so bloody far away. And I won't be able to get in, your insanity has numbed my brain so much I'll get the question wrong."

"Yeah! Bev's coming with us! Bev's coming with us!" Nichola started to skip round in delight, singing her little chant. Beverly grabbed her wrist.

"Only if you stop prancing about like a drunk centaur. _Capisce?_"

Nichola did indeed _capisce_ and after making sure that Beverly would not try to depart, the trio set off in search of the elusive Dante. Just as well, Beverly thought morosely, that it was a Saturday. At least they wouldn't get into trouble for trying to skip lessons. Nichola and Holly walked along slightly ahead of Beverly, their spirits high. She dragged her heels as much as possible, wondering what this Dante guy would do if they talked to him. He hadn't seemed very pleased to find them behind that tapestry. Harry Potter had stored out of the room not long before, causing Nichola and Holly to whisper furiously about what the hell he had been doing.

But it didn't take long before they concluded that Dante was not to be found. They passed Peeves, who was muttering angrily about something to do with a sword, but could get nothing else out of the poltergeist. The corridors were empty - most of the students preferred to remain inside the common rooms rather than risk any sort of injury to themselves. The walls echoed with the girls' excited chattering.

"This is no good," Holly said at last, tapping her foot impatiently. The three of them were back were they had started, close to the tapestry they'd been hiding behind. Admittedly, Beverly hadn't been helping much, even when she thought she caught a flash of red round a corner, she had kept silent.

"Well, there's only one other place he could be," said Nichola.

"Where?"

"Outside. Duh!"

"Oh no," Beverly protested. "You might have been living under a rock for the past few days, but it's not safe out there."

Nichola grinned at Bev with a rather wicked gleam in her eye. "If you're too scared to come outside..."

"Yeah, but..." Holly began, trailing off when Nichola rounded on her. This sort of thing happened rather a lot among the trio, but it was the first time that Nichola had taken it into her head to do something quite so reckless. The worst one had been when she tried to slip a Love Potion into a seventh year's pumpkin juice. Bev glanced uneasily at Holly who was now raising her hands in self-defence before Nichola's tirade.

"You're the one who's so desperate to meet the stupid guy! And now you don't even want to come with me. What's the worst that can happen anyway? He's probably outside and we've heard what he can do, so -"

"All right, all right!" Holly exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "When you put it that way, I guess..."

"Oh god," Beverly groaned. "You're actually gonna go along with this?" Holly shrugged. Nichola ignored Bev and instead gestured for Holly to follow. With a quick apologetic glance back, Holly complied. Muttering furiously, the third girl set off in pursuit. At the least she could make sure they came to no harm...

--------

_"So we went outside to find him. We didn't go out the front way - Filch was guarding it, and even Nichola knew that was just stupid, all the things were round the front. We went into the courtyard first and then round some of the grounds. The other two were getting annoyed because they couldn't find Dante anywhere."_

_McGonagall looked up sharply, her gaze directed accusingly at Dante. "Where were you then?"_

_Dante replied just as briefly, "On the pitch."_

_"We didn't look there," Beverly muttered. "But then Nichola started being stupid, acting like she was gonna go and see some of the monsters. We didn't take her seriously but she disppeared round a corner. We went after her, we thought we'd be able to catch her but then -"_

--------

The horrified shriek reverberated round the grounds. A few birds perched atop the castle took flight in alarm. They squawked petulantly at the second scream. Silence fell for a few seconds and then another voice rent the air, but it belonged to no human - the demons had found fresh prey and made no secret of their delight.

The grass yielded to Dante's heavy boots and then sprung back up again as he sprinted, searching for the source of the cries. He assumed it was from the front, but he couldn't be sure. He'd just have to -

_"HELP! PLEASE, SOMEONE, HELP MEEE -"_

Cut off abruptly again. He forced his muscles to work even harder, almost flying over the ground, barely touching down. Definitely the front. And exactly what the hell could anyone be doing round there? He would have thought the deaths of other students would make it plain that these monsters were not to be trifled with. If he hadn't been using so much air to simply run, he would have called to the person in trouble - reassure them, anything, make sure that they didn't give up. That was the problem, humans often subsided into shock when met with their own nightmares and then there was no hope for them at all. For a moment, he remembered the only human he could actually kind of cope with, and who could match the demons. Well, she was far away now. Back to the job in hand.

Namely, showing these demons that Dante son of Sparda was not to be trifled with.

There were no more human screams, but sickening demonic guffaws reached his ears as he drew ever closer, ever quicker. And then a thud. Sounded like the victim was fighting back somehow. Or maybe...

Refusing to even contemplate the other possibility, he reached behind, clasping Rebellion's hilt with a death grip. The ringing sound of metal as he drew it was lost in another scream. He sped round the last corner, nearly losing his balance, and then he almost froze in shock. It was those girls! He'd seen them only that morning, hidden behind that tapestry. His mind struggled with the question of why they had come outside but his musing was rudely interrupted by a Blade erupting from the ground a few feet to his right.

Rebellion lashed out, slicing swiftly through the demonic flesh. Out the corner of his eye, Dante saw that all three girls had their wands out and were having varying amounts of success. One had backed up against the castle wall, a silvery shield surrounding her which the demons could not penetrate - not just yet at least. The other two had managed to actually defeat a few demons, the ragged cloaks and sand providing ample evidence. But there were far too many demons swarming and even more arriving...

The main thing right now was to clear away enough of the things so that the girls could escape safely. Two Hell Prides fell victim to Rebellion's steel bite. Damned Chesspieces crumbled into rumble, blasted apart by Ebony's fiery bullets. Yet they still came.

A flash of bright pink. Dante blinked in surprise. Last time he'd checked, demons didn't wander round wearing pink. As his eyes focused properly, he realised that it was somebody with bright pink hair who had joined the fray. She noticed him gaping, slashing away with Rebellion on auto-pilot.

"Wotcher!" yelled the newcomer.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" Dante shouted back, cleaving a scythe in two.

"The name's Tonks. I take it you're the demon slayer McGonagall hired?"

"Yeah." They'd have to chat later. The girl with the shield seemed to be struggling to keep it in place, whether from fear or fatigue Dante neither knew nor cared. A blur of red and he'd disappeared, only to reappear by the girl's side an instant later - always a very useful trick. She stared at him in shock and her shield faltered. Before the nearest marionette could leap on her, Dante grabbed the girl by the scruff of the neck, none too gently; he wasn't about to sympathise with a trio of idiots. He ignored her sobs and transported himself again, this time to the edge of the battle, as close to the door as he could make it. He was about to simply let go of her but then he saw that she certainly wouldn't be able to stand up on her own now. Resisting the urge to raise his eyes to the heavens, he pulled her over to the entrance and kicked open the main doors which banged in a satisfyingly loud way. The girl staggered in and looked up at him, fear shining in her eyes.

"Just wait there," Dante told her, hoping she would actually do as she was told. "I'll help your friends, don't worry." And to think, only this morning he'd been in that Room of Need or whatever it was, drinking. Times sure did change fast.

Dante headed back toward the fight, pausing for a moment to take stock of the situation. Tonks, what a name, had placed herself near the other two witches and seemed to be holding her own pretty well. Still, she could do with some help, what with all the monsters milling round. He threw himself into the fray once more with reckless abandon though he still managed to ensure he didn't cut off an ally's head. That would not have gone down well with dear Minnie.

"Pretty impressive." Tonks stopped for a second, safe behind a shield, to watch Dante dispatch a pair of Fetishes with insulting ease. He tipped her a wink.

"It's not easy being this cool, y'know." She laughed.

No matter how many demons collapsed into sand and rags, no matter how many times Rebellion flashed, and Ebony and Ivory spat out bullets, the fight, if anything, grew yet more intense. To his sudden horror, Dante found himself being slowly forced away from the others, as if the demons just wanted to kill the girls. He wasn't used to demons acting in such a coherent manner and appearing to have some kind of plan.

Whoever was masterminding this knew just how to play their cards right.

A loud shout of fear. Tonks' shield had disappeared. She backed away from the onslaght, doing her best to prevent the demons reaching the girls. A rather impossible task, seeing as they were surrounded on all sides. Dante swore furiously and surged forward, ignoring the marionettes lurching after him, seeking to slow his progress. Fury coursed through his veins. To Tonks, it was as if there was a crackling aura surrounding him, sparks flying round the demon hunter. The monsters fell back before him - they alone realised that they were dealing with something inhuman now. And then he was standing right next to the pair of girls. One of them seemed to hardly noticed he was there - her eyes were fixed on something just behind him. Both of them screamed when they saw the scythe swinging through the air at them.

Dante threw out his left arm and the blade embedded itself in his forearm. The only sign he gave of pain was a slight intake of breath, a brief hissing sound. The offending demon received about twenty bullets blasted directly into its face. Dante wrenched the bloody scythe from his flesh. It didn't seem to hurt him in the least and certainly did not affect his skill when fighting. Now he holstered his gun, sheathed Rebellion, and took one arm of each girl. "Hold on tight."

He moved faster than any eye could follow, bringing both girls along, and stopped close to the doors. Except... wait, there was a slight problem here. The girl he'd already helped pointed it out to him:

"Nichola's still out there!" Crap. His eyes roamed and caught sight of Nichola, lying on the ground just a few feet away from the fight. She must have slipped from his grasp. He lunged forward with his fingers outstretched but they closed on air. She'd been jerked away from him by a Fallen, one of the demons that appeared to be angelic, having fallen from grace and now wrapped in evil. It soared away on huge wings, its feathers constantly floating down gently, and in its hand it clasped Nichola's elbow. Her mouth formed a silent plea for help, her voice lost to fear. Dante leapt desperately for her but the demon had flown out of reach. And she was getting closer to the Forest.

"_Tonks_!" Dante yelled, his voice raw with fury. "Slow that damn thing down!" But her spells had little effect except to knock the Fallen a a little way off-course. It had carried the girl far away now. It was all Dante could do to keep up. His blood boiled with anger and exertion. He held Ivory in his right hand with white knuckles. If he could fire off one well-placed bullet, maybe the Fallen would drop Nichola. She'd be all right if she fell, that matron woman could fix anything, broken bones, whatever.

The first shot went wide.

The second glanced off a wing. _Shit!_

The third found its mark. The Fallen screeched and released Nichola, on the very edge of the dark mass of trees. A crack could be heard clearly as she slammed into the ground which was far from soft. Didn't matter. That could be fixed. Broken bones were nothing -

Dante froze, his heart seemed to stop. From the Forbidden Forest something came oozing, creeping forward sickeningly, a great _thing _that was neither living nor dead. Thick black tendrils reached forward and dragged the mass along. White objects glimmered. It was difficult to tell what they might have been, perhaps skulls of past victims.

And this stuff of nightmares was _right next to Nichola._

Nightmare.

The demon slayer sagged, his rage bleeding out of him and leaving him utterly cold. He could not tear his eyes from the spectacle before him and he could do nothing to prevent it. He was too late. Tonks shouted at him. But... it was useless. Nichola tried to stand and even stumbled forward a pace or two before sinking down again, failed by her broken leg.

And then Nightmare seemed to realise that a victim lay close. It surged forward with renewed vigour as if in eagerness, though how such a thing could feel was beyond anyone's understanding. The first of the cold slime crawled over the girl's leg. And then it moved more quickly, swiftly yet almost gently engulfing her.

Only then did Dante turn away, to face the sea of demons once more, trying and failing to block the anguished screams from his mind.

---------

_A/N: ZOMG this took me far too long!!!! I am so sorry about that. I've just been caught up with tons of homework, seriously, I -_

_Vergil: Liar. You were playing DMC2, despite its awfulness._

_Yeah, a bit but -_

_Dante: She was playing it because I am so awesome! _

_Oh whatever. Anyway, I really did have a lot of coursework because of school. And yeah, I was playing a lot of DMC2, to complete DMD but LadyLuce won on that score XD and I was trying to get this thing written, so there's my excuse. I know Vergil will disagree - _

_Vergil: nods_

_But never mind. I kinda feel that this was a really sucky chapter, dunno why, maybe it just IS, so if you hate it, then... meh. Goodbye for now._


	7. Maro

**Chapter Seven - Maro**

There were very few students left at Hogwarts now, since the latest attack. Harry had seen groups of parents, carefully escorted by Aurors, enter the castle by backdoors and take their children away. A few refused though, particularly those who had been part of Dumbledore's Army: Ernie Macmillan had had a blazing row with his parents at the Hufflepuff table. The fact that many of his housemates were cheering him might have played a part in persuading his parents that Ernie would not be leaving.

On the other hand, most of the Slytherins had left but a few remained, for various reasons. But Harry was almost oblivious to the departure of nearly the whole school. His mind seemed able to focus on only three things: the strange demon hunter, the Horcruxes, and the sudden sharp pains he was experiencing once again in his scar.

He had noticed it for the first time the night after the girls had been attacked. The first few times it had been a mere tingle, but a day later, a sharp burning struck often and without warning. The last time left him clutching his head and gasping as he and the other two sat in the library, flicking dejectedly through various books.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione asked immediately. Ron glanced up in concern. Harry said nothing, massaging his head with his knuckles, trying to recall what he had just seen in that glimpse through Voldemort's eyes. It had been difficult to make anything out, it seemed that the Dark Lord was taking refuge in some dark place. Here and there Harry had discerned the glinting masks of the Death Eaters. They had all been looking at something, or maybe someone, in a shadowy corner. Voldemort was angry with whatever was in the corner - he had lifted his wand and there was a laugh, but he had not laughed...

Harry jerked as Hermione poked him in the shoulder, anchoring him to the here and now. She wanted an explanation, quite obviously. "It's your scar, isn't it? Don't tell me it's not, I can see it is."

"It's nothing," mumbled Harry, closing his eyes. Who had laughed? He couldn't bring anything more to mind, possibly because Hermione had clipped him round the ear.

"Hey!" he protested. "That was completely uncalled for." Anyone else would have quailed under the glare she was giving him but Harry had been on the receiving end of that look far too often for it to have any effect now. Harry closed his book and stood up, returning it to its shelf, careful to avoid Hermione's accusing stare. Ron's eyes flicked between the pair of them, uncertainty etched on his face. Harry muttered, "Thanks for the concern but I don't need it." With that, Harry turned to leave. He had to be on his own, with no distractions. Even the company of his friends was becoming too much.

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk," he replied with a simple shrug. He imagned Hermione casting an uneasy glance at Ron. He was almost outside the room when she spoke again.

"You don't have to do this alone, Harry."

Part of Harry wanted to stop: wanted to return to them, smiling, telling them that he knew - he knew he could count on them. But he carried on and left the others behind as his footsteps echoed. Whatever they said, he _was_ alone. He and only he could bring an end to Voldemort. He had not chosen this part, it had been forced upon him by the Dark Lord, like a black tunnel looming toward him. And if he allowed the others in his life to become too close, who knew what might happen to them? It was something he could not risk, the reason he had called it off with Ginny...

Eventually he wound his way up to the Gryffindor common room. The muted chit-chait ceased as he entered. Suppressing a sigh, Harry crossed the room, ignoring the furtive looks, and climbed the stairs to his dormitory where he fell upon his bed. He lay there, staring and not seeing.

What was he supposed to do? Last year, Dumbledore had entrusted the finding and desctruction of the Horcruxes to him, yet he had done almost nothing. The trio had intended to make a brief return to Hogwarts, more for old times' sake than anything else, but then the monsters, the demons, had arrived. There had been nothing else to do except wait, wait and hope that somehow the school would be saved. And all the time Harry knew that Voldemort was out there, so close by, and he was powerless to do anything. All he could do was put his faith into the demon slayer. The longer he did nothing, the less time he had - he could almost envisage an hourglass, the grains of sand trickling away as time ran past...

- - - - - - - -

Voldemort was usually not someone given to emotion, preferring to remain detached. Often a cool head had meant the difference between victory and defeat, though he was forced to admit that he had sometimes allowed his rage to rule him. It threatened to do so now as his red eyes focused on the figure in the corner, shrouded in shadows. He remembered well how he had met this stranger.

It had been easy, ridiculously easy to reverse the magic, a simple matter for a master of the Dark Arts. The vague gossamer mist had swirled, become almost solid and opaque, before dissolving once more, the silver now tinged with rusted red, almost as if it had been stained with blood. A yell of triumph went up from his faithful Death Eaters, and his lips had even stretched into a horrible parody of a grin. Really, it was amazing that nobody had ever thought of this before. It proved even more how far he was willing to go, how much he would give in order to reign supreme. He stepped forward, wand outstretched, about to venture into the mist and then - who knew?

Before the tip of his wand made contact with the insubstantial silver, it shifted suddenly. The grin faded and was replaced by a frown. In the mist, a shadow could be seen, an area of darkness, small at first and then growing as it approached. It became man-shaped. The Death Eaters muttered among themselves, wondering whether their master had foreseen this, whether this was a part of the plan.

Within seconds, the shadow had solidified into what appeared to be a person. His gaunt face was framed by lank grey hair and he limped feebly with each step, his feet dragging along the floor, perhaps the relic of some old injury. Despite his condition, a smile was on his face, reaching right across and exposing teeth that were pearly white yet many of them were missing. His clothes, mere rags, hung from his thin frame. In his right hand he clutched a book which had seen better days, pages falling from it even as he walked. He came to a halt about four feet away from Voldemort, apparently oblivious to the disgusted looks he was getting.

When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and yet some underlying emotion ran through it, impossible to pinpoint. "Welcome to hell, mortals." And the smile stretched even wider.

In the following days, Voldemort learned much and was surprised to discover how many things had been unknown to him. The idea that he alone among wizards was privy to this knowledge amused him greatly. What fools they were to let such power lie sleeping! It was another way in which he was superior to them all.

The man in the mist had introduced himself as 'Maro' and he would tell nothing else about himself, his only response when pressed a shake of the head. Even when Voldemort threatened torture, Maro would say nothing but that eerie smile widened and somehow Voldemort was wary of antagonising the man. However, Maro had plenty to say about the place beyon the mist and it was this that Voldemort found to be of most interest.

"You see, Tom -" The Dark Lord twitched irritably. Maro took no notice. "You see, no other wizards have ever thought the same way as you. You're the first to have the sense to reverse the magic. So of course, you can't be blamed for not knowing what to expect. The place I come from is literally Hell. Or, well, I should really say the Underworld, or the demonic realm. Hell's just a tag you humans have stuck on it. Anyway Tom -"

"My name is Voldemort," he interrupted in a low hiss.

Maro continued blithely, "Whatever you say Tom."

Voldemort leapt up in a towering rage, drawing his wand. Maro looked at it with vague disinterest and raised an eyebrow at the taller man's expression of fury. And then he slowly turned away, returning to his book. Whenever this happened, he would refuse to talk for at least the rest of the day.

Another subject Maro often touched upon was that of the demons. Soon after he had emerged, strange creatures had come through the mist, many of them wielding huge blades. The Death Eaters had immediately tried to destroy the monsters but their spells were of no use. As the monsters came on, the Death Eaters had retreated with yells until Maro spoke sharply and the newcomers halted. Soon Voldemort found out that these were the demons and Maro had explained why the magic had failed, much as Dante had explained to McGonagall. Voldemort had quickly realised how these demons could be put to use. To his faint surprise, Maro had agreed. Voldemort had been expecting a flat refusal and another grin.

"It is my master's wish that they be put to good use," Maro said with a shrug. Voldemort scowled.

"Who is your master then?" And this time he got the smile.

Despite the antagonism between the two, they were able to plot the siege of Hogwarts. The Dark Lord was almost beside himself with delight as the Aurors were unable to drive back the monsters. Potter had been trapped like a rat and it was only a matter of time before he ventured out, perhaps with some idiotic notion of saving the day yet again.

But then the carefully laid plans went awry. That stranger, that _Muggle_ on the motorbike had swanned in and with horrible ease had destroyed hundreds of the demons! He had even saved two of the girls, though Voldemort had noted his apparent reluctance to challenge the Nightmare, as Maro called it. But the red-coated threat could not go unanswered, leading to the current situation.

Maro shifted slightly in his spot. The clearing was silent except for the turning of pages. There was a soft thud as Maro closed his book and raised his head, his filthy hair swinging in front of his face. And there was the grin again.

"I demand that you do something about this man!" Maro remained silent. "_Answer me!_"

The man from Hell stood slowly, wavering a little as he always did. "Tom," he began, his tone condescending, "firstly may I remind you that you will not get an answer if you speak to me like that. Secondly, I am afraid that it is my master's wish that I do nothing -"

"_I_ am your master!" Voldemort almost screeched. His Death Eaters looked away. A horrible silence fell. Maro's gaze was on Voldemort. Anger pulsed through the Dark Lord's veins. In a flash he had drawn his wand and as he held it in front of him, it shook very slightly.

A sound that he had never expected echoed suddenly. A burst of laughter, alarming in its volume and intensity. And it was Maro laughing, laughing at _him_. The man had bent double and tears were even rolling down his cheeks. Voldemort's wand shook harder.

"_Be silent!"_

But Maro was not silent. His laughter continued, bubbling over. Finally it began to subside and he straightened. He saw the wand and started chuckling to himself again. Yet Voldemort did nothing except to try and hold the wand steady. He did not cast any spells, to the surprise of the Death Eaters. At last Maro's laughter died away and suddenly his face grew serious.

"You are deluded," he said clearly, his voice icily cold. "You are foolish enough to call yourself _my _master? You might hold sway over them -" he gestured at the Death Eaters who were utterly silent "- but you have no power over me. Dark Lord? A human declares himself to be a Dark Lord!" He laughed again but this time it was filled with a mocking sound that grated on Voldemort's nerves. Maro resumed his speech. "You know nothing of darkness, Tom Riddle. The true Dark Lord resides in Hell and you had best hope you never have the misfortune to meet him. And it is my master's wish that I do nothing about this demon slayer. There are other plans for him."

Having ended his rebuke, Maro's grin returned. Suddenly he turned his head to the side, a frown passing across his face. Voldemort opened his mouth but no retort came. Before he could come up with a really evil comment, Maro spoke again.

"It would appear that the demon slayer is not your only problem now," he said softly. For a moment Voldemort could make no sense of this statement, until he heard sudden shrieks belonging to the demons. Following Maro's gaze, he saw through the shadowy trees that someone was in the grounds. His red eyes widened.

"It'll be interesting to see what happens now, don't you think?" Maro commented.

- - - - - - - -

Harry didn't move as the dormitory door opened. It was only when the newcomer spoke that he realied it was Ron. He was tempted to get up and leave but instead he remained motionless on the bed.

"Hermione's right, you know." Harry was silent. "Whatever you think or say, we'll be there."

Harry sat up. "But that's the problem. What if you're there and it goes wrong? What if either of you get hurt? It'll be my fault. Voldemort will try to get to me through both of you and I can't let that happen." He saw that Ron had a rather mulish look upon his face.

"Look, mate," Ron began, "it won't be your fault if something happened. We're choosing to stick by you. Anyway, we've had this conversation before, haven't we?"

"Yeah, but -"

"But _nothing_. We've known all this stuff for years and we've always stuck by you, whether you like it or not. Got it?" Harry sighed, nodding. They'd probably go through this again some other time though. He was rather stubborn sometimes.

And then the door banged open and Neville Longbottom burst inside, his face flushed with excitement. "Harry! Ron!" he exclaimed while trying to catch his breath. "You won't believe - outsie - amazing." He gasped and rather than attempt to explain he gesutred out of the window. Harry and Ron leaped over, pressing their faces to the glass. At first nothing seemed strange but Harry noticed the monsters outside were in uproar. Squinting, he made ou a small figure dressed in white, walking along as if unaware of the nearby demons. Ron whistled.

"What does that guy think he's doing?"

But Harry had a funny feeling that the stranger knew exactly what he was doing and this was proven seconds later. Three of the lizard-like demons erupted violently from the ground in a shower of mud. The figure, instead of fleeing, dived to one side and Harry faintly made out that they were holding a gun in their hand and spraying bullets. The lizards collapsed into a heap.

At that moment a sudden roar of fury shook the walls. There had been words in that roar and as far as Harry could tell, they had been: "WHAT THE HELL IS -?" before they were cut off. It had been easy to recognise Dante's voice and Harry wondered what had upset him so. Only one way to find out.

He had to pull Ron away from the spectacle and the pair sprinted through the common room, where the remaining Gryffindors had pressed their faces to the window, downstairs and through the corridors, taking short-cuts here and there. Students were gathered round the windows, intrigued by this show. Ron showed signs of wanting to stop and watch but Harry pressed on until they came to the Entrance Hall, where quite a crowed had already gathered. Dante had also just arrived and was shoving his way through the group furiously. Harry watched as Dante flung open the doors with a brutal kick.

"And _what_," Dante yelled, "exactly are _you_ doing here?"

- - - - - - -

_A/N: And again, this took me forever. But you wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of work I've had! And I've read comments on the last chapter, some of you mentioned that you liked how Dante's grown up a bit, and about time too._

_Dante: Hey!_

_I really should stop letting them interrupt. Anyway, thanks for all your reviews, I read every single one of them and I pay attention to them too. And don't worry, Dante's not gonna be getting drunk again, that was a little silly of him. Anyways, hope you enjoyed, keep leaving those reviews, and bye for now!_

_P.S: Some of you have been trying to guess who the newcomer is. Now, read the paragraph carefully, look at what the person is wearing and what the person is doing and please remeber that Ron and Harry were watching from a distance. 'Kay?_


	8. Hail Lady

**Chapter Eight - Hail Lady**

"And _what _exactly are _you_ doing here?"

There was a silence that lasted about one tenth of a second - maybe a little longer - before it was ripped apart by an explosion quickly followed by a sort of whooshing_ zipping_ sound, ending with a dull crunch, a crack and a strange squelch. These sounded within the space of perhaps a second of each other and at first nobody could make any sense of them. To be honest, the noise of a gun firing and a bullet coming into contact with human flesh and bone was not something often heard at Hogwarts. The students stood nearest the door - the ones with knowledge of the Muggle world anyway - were the first to make the connection between the stranger, the hefty gun and the smoke rising from it. Those standing nearest Dante were rather confused by the sight of a bright red circle in the centre of his forehead.

It was a tall Ravenclaw who made at least some sense of the bizarre situation. "SHE SHOT HIM!"

Harry blinked. She...? Leaning to the side a bit, he was able to peer out the main doors and to his surprise, the 'guy' he'd seen earlier did indeed turn out to be female. His only excuse for such a mistake was that he'd seen her from a distance. Ron was gaping, his mouth hanging slightly open. Harry considerately pushed his chin up. He could see just why Ron was so captivated - the woman was dressed in a white sort of jumpsuit and Harry noted uncomfortably that the cleavage was rather low.

He suddenly remembered Dante. The demon hunter had stumbled backwards, raising one hand to his head, and most thought he would topple over. But somehow he regained his balance though he swayed on the spot, a groggy expression of outrage on his face. Harry started forward, thinking that maybe he should help Dante to the hospital wing. He stopped though as Dante shouted again, his voice still as strong as ever.

"You really need to stop doing that!"

He reached up - for a second Harry thought he was going to draw his huge sword - but his hand went to his forehead and with another disgusting _squelch_, he plucked the bullet from his skull. A couple of girls practically fainted. He flicked it from his fingers and it rolled away, coming to rest just in front of Harry, who saw the blood and possibly a chip of bone stuck to it. Nice. Looking back up, he saw with surprise that Dante seemed to be suffering no further ill effects - he was in fact striding outside, his huge boots clumping on the ground.

"What's happening?"

Hermione's voice floated across the crowd. Ron didn't seem to hear her; he was still staring at the woman outside who was watching Dante approach with a cool smile. As Hermione came closer, Harry jabbed Ron in the ribs and looking pointedly at their friend. Ron hurriedly stopped staring and turned his back on the scene unfolding outside in order to greet Hermione.

Meanwhile Dante had halted in front of the woman, a rather ridiculous sort of pout on his face. The two were undisturbed by demons for the moment, alarmed by this second demon slayer.

"Do I get an explanation?"

"Sorry," she said, holstering her gun. He noticed that the rocket launcher was strapped to her back as usual. "My finger slipped."

Dante narrowed his eyes. "You always say that. But what are you doing _here_, Lady?" This time Lady offered no answer, except to shrug slightly and head indoors. For the first time she noticed that huge crowd that had gathered.

"You organised a welcome party for me, Dante?" she asked in amusement. "How thoughtful of you, for a change." He spluttered in protest. She was making him look a fool in front of everyone! As she walked, the students parted before her like the Red Sea and then closed up again as they followed. With a curse Dante shoved his way through, accidently knocking over a couple of the smaller kids. Lady left everyone else - except Dante of course - in the Entrance Hall, and then suddenly turned to him. He almost walked straight into her.

"Since you're here, you can lead me to the Headmistress' office, right?"

Dante crossed his arms, a mulish look upon his face. "And what if I don't want to?"

"I can always put another bullet in your head. I will, you know, just for kicks."

"And I'll be fine anyway! Just _what_," he emphasised his point by jabbing her irritably in the chest, "are _you_ doing here?"

"My job, of course." She stepped away from him, out of reach of his jabbing finger and looked round for some clue as to the whereabouts of the office. Dante wasn't finished yet though.

"What do you mean, your job? Did Trish tell you to come? You were all the way over in Australia -!"

"Asia, actually."

"Whatever, same thing. Why have you come back here suddenly to take over _my_ work?"

For the first time, Lady paid him proper attention, a quizzical frown on her face. "So McGonagall called you first, did she?"

"Yes!"

"Funny." Now Lady looked thoughtful. "She didn't mention you when she called me..."

Dante gaped, lost for words once more, his throat constricted by outrage. Eventually he found his voice. "You're telling me that bloody woman went behind my back and called someone else... just because..." Instead of trying to convey his anger to a rather bemused Lady, he set his mouth in a firm line. That was it. He was going to have it out with McGonagall, heaven strike him down if he didn't. He set off at a rapid pace, muttering furiously to himself. Lady jogged after him, having guessed correctly that he was on his way to the office. She knew there was no talking to him when he was like this, when he was full of righteous fury. Problem was, he tended to be like that a lot. Guys like Dante are usually convinced they're right.

He said nothing, even as the pair traveled up the revolving staircase. Lady, in truth, was amused by his reaction to her presence. He hadn't really changed a bit. As soon as they came to a stop just outside the office door, Dante kicked it open - Lady rolled her eyes at the unnecessary violence - and stormed inside.

Professor McGonagall was sitting at her desk, bent over a few sheets of parchment that she seemed to find extremely interesting. Dante, on the other hand, showed no regard for whatever she was doing.

"What the hell is your problem?" he asked angrily, his voice rousing the portraits. "What were you thinking when you called her in?"

The Headmistress shot a look of confusion in. "To whom are you referring?" Dante, anger smouldering in his eyes, pointed an accusatory finger at Lady, who was looking with wide eyes at the moving portraits. McGonagall's face cleared.

"Ah, so you've arrived!" she said brightly, rising from her desk and striding toward the other woman, now ignoring Dante. "I am the school's Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall."

"Pleased to meet you. I'm Lady."

"Wonderful. May I offer you a cup of tea?"

"That'd be great, I'm a bit tired from my trip."

Yet again, Dante's mind drew a blank as he tried to think of something to say. All his brain could come up with was _She didn't offer _me _any tea when I arrived_, in a childish whine.

"You didn't offer _me_ any tea when I arrived," he said aloud in a childish whine. McGonagall gave him an extremely condescending look and Lady had to work hard to keep the grin off her face. The Headmistress directed Lady to a seat and waved her wand. A large silver platter, with a teapot and two cups appeared. McGonagall continued to ignore Dante - rather pointedly - and poured out two cups of steaming tea. The silence continued for a few more seconds as McGonagall handed Lady her cup, until Dante finally spoke up, mental faculties returning to him.

"So," he said furiously, "I'm not up to the job, huh? You had to call her in?"

McGonagall, instead of giving him a decent answer, addressed Lady, and left Dante feeling like a fifth wheel. Or fourth wheel, if you have one of those nifty cars with three wheels, or even third wheel if you're on a bike. But for the sake of the simile and our sanity, we'll stick to fifth wheel.

"I saw your performance," the Headmistress said, nodding out the window. "I'm impressed, I think you'll do a good job."

"Uh, yeah, thanks." Lady accepted the praise with an uncertain nod and glanced at Dante, feeling slightly sorry for him. He had now positioned himself by a portrait of some old guy with a ridiculously long white beard, and was conversing with the old guy in furious undertones. The old guy seemed upset about something too. She didn't feel sympathetic with the demon slayer for long.

"I have to say though," McGonagall continued, a disapproving tone now in her voice, "I'm not sure your clothing is exactly suitable. For one thing, you will be hard pressed to avoid some of the seventh year boys."

Dante muttered something which McGonagall missed, but Lady with her sharp hearing got perfectly. In a flash she had crossed the space between them and landed a stinging slap across his face. Or at least she would have done had he not ducked, protesting loudly that he had said _nothing_, that she was a bloody _violent _banshee and that even if he _had _said anything, it would have been true _anyway_, at which point Lady promptly began raining blows upon him. Dante swore and the portraits shook their heads at the ridiculous, if highly amusing, spectacle.

"I heard every word of what you said, Dante!" Lady's voice almost became shrilly in her remonstrations. "You absolutely disgusting sexist _pig_! This is why I went to Asia in the first place!"

"Wait - ow! - what you _heard_ and what I _said_ - ouch, stop it - you just misheard me, okay? _Quit it!_" Dante fled, hands thrown up above his head in an attempt to protect himself. Pretty futile really. Lady gave up hitting him and fumbled for a gun. On seeing this, Dante prudently decided to leave the office altogether. He managed to get round the door but couldn't resist tossing a final remark at McGonagall.

"I hope you're suitably impressed with that show of violence," he snarled, slamming the door, but not before Lady fired a bullet at him. The door closed and both women could hear his muffled curses. As they faded, the office grew uncomfortably silent. Lady noticed she still had a gun in her hand. She holstered it hastily, wondering what the Headmistress might have to say to her on the subject of guns.

"A unique and effective way of dealing with him," Professor McGonagall said. Lady got the feeling that she was just about holding in a burst of laughter. "But probably best not to do that in front of the students." Lady decided not to mention the fact that she'd already put a bullet in Dante's head in full view of probably every single pupil at the school.

"So what's the situation here?" she asked. "You weren't very revealing over the phone. And you never told me that you'd already hired Dante."

McGonagall sighed heavily. "I prefer to keep quiet over... telephones. The demons have already killed three pupils and severely injured three others. A few days ago, three girls went out into the grounds. One of them was killed, one seems to be in shock, though the third shows no other signs of ill health. You see, Dante tried to save them, but he was only partially successful. I've other reasons to doubt his ability. He is hot-tempered, far too fond of alcohol -"

"No wonder he's upset," Lady muttered, more to herself than to McGonagall. Sounded like Dante had finally learnt that not everyone could be saved. She spoke a little louder. "Don't you think you've been a bit harsh? Dante acts like a goof sometimes - most of the time, really - but he knows right from wrong and he'll usually do the right thing." She couldn't quite believe that she was actually defending him, considering that she'd just tried to beat him to death. "As for his ability... you obviously don't know him at all, if you think his ability is a problem. Anyway, I'm here now, whether he likes it or not. I'll keep him in line."

McGonagall's lips were pressed together, her mouth a thin line. She had heard similar words from Dante himself, and afterall, he had tried to help. It was just that she, so unused to such a complex personality, had not seen it. Perhaps she had been a little harsh. Out the corner of her eye she noticed Dumbledore's portrait looking at her with a raised eyebrow. Doubtless he agreed with Lady. McGonagall looked away determinedly. She rather detested being wrong.

"I suppose I could apologise," she said, almost mumbling. Lady grinned.

"There we go, admitting that you're wrong is the first step on the path to enlightenment, or something like that."

Lady and Dante were similar in some ways, McGonagall thought sourly. Probably just as stubborn as each other. It might be interesting to see how they played off against each other, and amusing too. "Indeed. But you will be staying as well?"

Lady nodded. "Yes, of course. Two demon hunters are better than..." She trailed off, staring in alarm out of the window. The Headmistress followed her gaze.

"I think we'll be needing two demon hunters very soon anyway," Dumbledore's portrait said pleasantly.

- - - - - - - -

Voldemort was feeling nervous. It was not a feeling he was accustomed to. He was usually sure of himself and his plans. Except this time, the plan was more of Maro's making than his own, thus the inexplicable nervousness. His fingers were twitching almost imperceptibly. Nobody seemed to notice, but Maro's thin face had a cynical smile on it, as if he knew exactly what the Dark Lord was thinking. Tensions had been high for several days, first rising when those foolish girls had ventured outside, and now the air seemed thick with the tension, since the woman had arrived.

Almost immediately after her arrival, Maro had announced the plan. When Voldemort asked why they had not gone ahead with it before now, all he got was a now familiar condescending look. Despite not liking the fact that everything seemed to be out of his own hands, Voldemort had approved of the plan in principle. So did the demons, if the loud roars coming from them were anything to go by.

Still, he had to assert leadership somehow. Turning to his faithful Death Eaters, Voldemort spoke in a raised voice to them all. "Potter is mine. If you find him, I want him brought before me. Do what you like to the others but Potter is _mine_." Nobody raised any objections.

Maro also declined to comment, but wanted to reiterate the plan. "I would advise your, er, Death Eaters to stay away from the demon hunters, particularly the male." For some reason, he found the name 'Death Eaters' highly amusing and could never keep a straight face when saying it. "You might find that your magic sticks won't be as effective against him. Therefore I _humbly_ request that you leave the demon slayers to me, if we're all in agreement." His tone of voice suggested that there would be trouble if they were not in agreement.

Voldemort had no wish for trouble. He was close, he could be mere minutes away from winning. If all went as Maro had planned it, Potter could be dead within the hour. No, he did not want trouble. In any case, it would probably be simpler to leave the demon hunters to Maro - he seemed to have some sort of personal vendetta against the pair.

With everything ready, and everyone briefed, it only remained for them to put the plan into action. Maro clicked his fingers, gave a short command and pointed out of the forest and at the castle. The demons, which had been hovering round the Forbidden Forest, either shuffled, hopped, or flew on their way. The whole army of demons, and Death Eaters too, began the journey to the castle. Maro watched them closely, scrutinising his metaphorical pawns in the long game of chess.

He only hoped that the trick up his sleeve - or trick inside the castle - would come off properly.

- - - - - - - -

_A/N: My god, crappy ending! Well, seems crappy to me, but never mind. Gotta say a big thanks to Lady Luce, she's brilliant at helping me sort out my literary roadblocks. So thanks!_

_Hope I haven't disappointed any of you, some people thought it might have been Vergil arriving. But y'know, I did say that the newcomer was using guns in the last chapter, right? Not that it matters now anyways. Lady's back and rest assured she'll be helping Dante kick some demonic butt._

_I hope you enjoyed the chapter, I'll try to be quicker with the next one, though I keep saying I will be. Bye for now!_


	9. Invasion

**Chapter Nine - Invasion**

The crowd at the door had dispersed almost immediately now that the fun and excitement was over. Most had in fact followed the Dante and the woman at a safe distance, rather than return to lessons, gathering outside the Headmistress's office. When Dante stormed out of there, he was most surprised by the group of students, and rather irritated by it too. Apparently he had knocked over quite a few people as he left, rolling another bullet between his fingers.

Harry and the other two had not been around to see this latest episode. They had instead remained by the front doors. Harry in particular had no wish to come face to face with Dante when he was in such a mood - it couldn't be any better than seeing him drunk and that would have been traumatic enough for anyone. The bullet that had been fired by the strange woman still lay incongruously on the floor. Harry suddenly knelt down and picked it up carefully, trying not to get his fingers covered in blood, though that proved a little difficult. He wiped it off with his robes. Ron gave the piece of metal a look of absolute disgust.

"Why would you want that thing?" he asked as Harry looked at it closely, turning it this way and that in the dim light.

"Don't you think it's strange," Harry answered thoughtfully, "that he's survived two injuries that should have killed anyone else?"

Ron shrugged. He was obviously unimpressed. "He's probably got some sort of charm thing. Leave that alone, it was in his _head_ for crying out loud!" Harry ignored him and instead pocketed the bullet.

Hermione also gave Harry an unnerved look, which seemed to suggest that he was crazy for wanting a bullet that had recently been embedded in a man's head. But she made no comment, except to say, "It can't be a charm, Ron. We know he's a Muggle, he can't do magic."

This observation was met with a disagreeing snort. "So if he's a Muggle, how can he pull off all those tricks? How can he see the castle, for a start? It's supposed to appear as ruins to Muggles, according to your books." Harry looked at his friend in surprise. He hadn't realised that anything Hermione had ever told them about the school had actually penetrated Ron's skull.

"Well I don't know, do I?" Hermione answered, snapping a little.

"You look at him often enough, I'd have thought you'd want to find out everything about him so you can declare yourself his number one fan." At this Hermione turned slightly pink. She opened her mouth to retaliate but Harry quickly intervened before the argument could get heated. He wasn't in the mood for being stuck between the pair of them today.

"Leave it, both of you," he said quickly. "It doesn't matter one way or another. Who cares if he's a Muggle or even human or... or... Hermione," he broke off irritably, "are you actually listening to me?" Her face had taken on a sort of vague look. The other two recognised this look - it usually appeared when she'd realised something of great interest/importance. Ron snapped his fingers in front of her and grinned as she blinked.

"Back with us now?"

She swatted his hand away impatiently. "Harry, that's it!"

"What's it?"

"Human!"

"One day," Ron said loudly, "our friend Hermione will speak clearly and explain things properly and on this day, hell will freeze over."

"Dante is a Muggle. He's certainly not a wizard and he can't perform magic in the conventional sense. But he's definitely not human either. Or at least, he's not fully human."

"Like Hagrid?"

"Well, yes... I mean, he's not half-giant, otherwise he'd be enormous. But there is something different about him, I'm certain of it." Harry considered it. He supposed it would explain a lot about Dante - his disappearing trick for one thing, and his remarkable recovery speed.

"What's his other half then?" Ron asked, mollified slightly by her wise words.

"That's what I don't know. So we'll have to go -"

"Don't tell me," Harry interrupted. "The library."

Ron groaned, but didn't argue. Hermione's face had lit up considerably at the thought of even more research in the library. Harry himself wasn't particularly thrilled, but if it stopped them bickering, he'd do anything. And of course, he wanted to know about Dante... he wasn't prepared to trust him unless he knew all there was to know. Even McGonagall thought there was something funny about the demon slayer... all they had to do was find out.

Now that they were all in agreement once more, the trio turned to set off for the library. But they'd barely moved before Harry paused, frowning at the doorway leading from the Great Hall. A girl stood there, leaning against the doorframe, as if unable to support her own weight. Her gaze was unfocused. With a start, Harry realised that she was one of the girls involved in the fight outside, a few days ago. Apparently she was in shock and had not spoken a word since. He stepped forward uncertainly, wondering if she somehow forgotten where she was.

Hermione spoke kindly to the girl. "Are you all right? Do you need some help?" The vacant eyes suddenly locked on Hermione's face, who flinched a little. Without a word, the girl shook her head slowly. Harry was uneasy for some reason; the girl seemed empty but he sensed that some strange intent lurked behind her eyes.

"C'mon," Ron muttered, nudging Harry. "She's nuts, leave her to it."

But somehow Harry didn't want to leave her to it: if he turned his back, she would do something which could not be taken back. But really, what could she do? She was in shock and who wouldn't be, after what had happened to her?

She straightened, taking them all by surprise, and stumbled forward, as if she did not have full control of her limbs. Or, Harry thought, it was more like something else was inside her, something that was unsure of how to work a human body. She lurched towards them and the three stood aside hastily. Harry would often wonder whether things might have changed if they'd stood their ground.

In an unexpected burst of speed, the girl in shock sprinted across the Entrance Hall, arms outstretched like some deranged zombie. Too late, Harry realised her intention.

"No, wait!"

He started after her, but she'd already reached the main doors and was feverishly sliding the large bolts. As he reached to pull her back by the shoulder, she threw the doors open savagely. His mind gabbled, _It's all right, the demons are at the forest, it'll take them a few minutes to realise -_

He pulled her back roughly and she fell over, sprawled on the stone floor, a horrid inhuman grin stretched across her face. Ignoring her, Harry grabbed the doors and tried to pull them closed. "_Help me!_" he yelled to the others and looked outside. And instead of being just inside the Forbidden Forest, the great mass of demons were almost at the castle. Monsters dressed in dark rags and wielding cruel scythes shambled forward; enormous chess pieces, rather like the ones he'd played against in his first year, hopped toward the castle; above these were the Fallen with their angelic appearance, and Sin Scythes, their terrible cackles clearly audible. _How...?_

Maro had laid his plans carefully. It had been a stroke of lucky really that a demon had managed to possess one of the girls, and he was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Take whatever comes and grab it with both hands. And so he had sent the demonic army on its way, flanked by Death Eaters. He and Lord Voldemort brought up the rear, the better to see the carnage about to ensue. Maro still clutched his old book in his hand but it was virtually useless now - most of the pages had fallen out and only the hardback cover and a few ragged pieces of paper remained. Yet he still held it like some sort of talisman.

Ron and Hermione had joined Harry at the door, trying to help him pull it closed, but the girl, who'd been lying prone, leapt up with a vicious hiss and with a single word, the doors locked in place, wide open. No matter how hard the three tugged, it was impossible to budge the doors, and the girl's furious shrieks did nothing to help. And all the while...

"Harry!" Hermione shouted. He glanced at her and realised she was pointing at something outside. In the time they'd been trying to shut the doors, the demons had gained a terrifying amount of ground. The front line of various scythe-wielding monsters were barely fourteen feet away and coming closer.

"Oh, that's a problem," Harry noted. "We should probably run."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "That's a pretty good idea."

So they ran.

- - - - - - - -

Dante couldn't believe this. This had to be the worst job he'd ever taken on. Okay, perhaps that was a little strong, there had been that call out a few months ago to stop some madman which he hadn't enjoyed, but this job ranked highly on the "Totally Sucks" scale. He even had a list back at the office, with Temen-Ni-Gru up at the top. This Hogwarts job could go a little below that.

He wasn't particularly upset that Lady was here - he had enjoyed working with her before she buggered off to Asia, the constant bickering had provided light entertainment - but the fact that McGonagall had simply gone ahead and hired her irked him. She obviously thought him inadequate, but he'd done nothing wrong. The death of that girl had been unfortunate but the Headmistress seemed to think he'd let it happen on purpose.

"Like I ever would," he muttered, scuffing his boots as he wandered the corridors. He still had the bullet between his fingers, rolling it thoughtfully. The Headmistress must think him some kind of monster. He knew she disapproved of his presence, refusing to place trust in Dumbledore's opinion, but jeeze! you had to be heartless to just let someone die. It had been unavoidable. The other two had been lucky to escape just about unscathed.

You would have thought, he said to himself, that after his outburst the other day, McGonagall would have listened. Maybe Lady would talk some sense. Speaing of Lady, he rather thought it would have been polite of her to check with either him or Trish about this job. After all, she'd been called out from Asia, all the way back here. Common sense, surely? Apparently not.

Dante cast a glance out a nearby window, his pace as quick as ever. But it slowed suddenly as he stopped to take a closer look. "What the..." His sharp eyes caught movement at the very edge of the dark mass of trees which was the Forest. A second later, his fears were confirmed - the demons were on the move, and moving at an alarming speed. What could they be hoping to do? The castle doors were shut fast, they couldn't be opened from the outside.

No time to worry now. Something was up. Leaving the window, he sprinted away, leaping down the stairs, sometimes missing out whole floors by vaulting over the banisters. What if the demons had found some way of getting inside? Or maybe someone inside would open...

"Dammit!" he groaned. Of course! How could he have missed it? Obvious, really, when you thought of it, but he'd been so preoccupied after that incident. If he'd had the time, he would have banged his head against a wall but sadly he couldn't afford that particular luxury.

He rounded one final corner and skidded into the Entrance Hall, almost knocking over Harry, Ron and Hermione. For a moment they stood still, gaping at each other.

"The doors are open," Harry said by way of explanation.

"Oh, really?" Dante said in conversational tones.

"Yep."

"Wasn't you, was it?"

"Nope."

"Thought not."

Hermione suddenly tugged on Dante's arm. He looked down at her in surprise. "It was that girl," she said breathlessly. "You have to do something, the monsters are nearly -"

She was interrupted by a loud screech. Looking past the trio, Dante saw one of the girls who'd been caught up in the battle. Instead of cowering in fear, she was standing just inside the doors with her head raised. It was she who was screeching. Again Dante felt the urge to bang his head against a wall. _You total dumbass_, he scolded himself.

"Get outta here," he said shortly. "They'll be inside in a few seconds, go warn everyone." With that he sprung forward.

"What if we want to help?" Harry shouted after him, reluctant to leave.

"I said get outta here! Tell Lady to get a move on." Ron and Hermione disappeared to warn the other students. Harry however took a different route and headed to the Headmistress's office, a sudden idea in his mind.

Meanwhile, Dante had reached the girl. She was oblivious to his presence for a moment, her eyes fixed on the rapidly approaching demons. Dante roughly grabbed her arm and, ignoring her shrieks, dragged her away from the doors, just as a blade flew by. Time to get a move on.

"Now what am I gonna do with you?" he said. Glancing down, he saw tears on her face. "Nuh-uh, you won't fool me that way. Let's see..." He wrenched open a door and discovered a large cupboard. "Aha. This should do nicely. In ya go." He slung the kid in, none too gently. She stumbled and spun round, a venomous look on her face. He gave her a sardonic wave and slammed the door in her face. "And hey, a key, how convenient! Think I'll just leave you in here to think about what you've done. Like the naughty step. Only it's a cupboard. And when you're ready, you can come out and say sorry, how does that sound?"

Her response was a horrible screech.

"Have it your way. I'm just off to wipe out some of your mates." He turned his back on her protests and surveyed the hall critically. Many demons had found their way inside, making the room echo with their groans. For the second time, he got the feeling that there was somebody coordinating the whole thing - not just the attack, but everything that had happened. Demons never worked together so well unless they had a leader who could offer them something they might want.

Well, it wasn't as if he had time to waste, thinking about it. There be demons to kill and there was still no sign of Lady. Typical woman. Drawing Rebellion, he tapped the flat side of the blade against his palm, smiling as the demons became aware of him. "Don't remember inviting you," he said cheerily. "I never did like gatecrashers which makes it your unlucky day."

He darted forward and before any of the demons knew what hit them, he'd decapitated several of them with one slash. He continued in the same fashion, moving faster than any human eye could follow. "Come on, I was hoping for a challenge this time!" Gunshots joined in the cacophony of ringing metal. Twisting round, Dante saw that Lady had finally put in an appearance.

"It's about time you got here," he called to her as he dodged a scythe or two. "I was beginning to think you'd turned chicken."

She flashed a smile. "I thought I'd let you warm them up for me. Anyway, you're not taking all the credit this time, like you always try to."

Dante ducked under a marionette's knife and thrust upwards with his sword. "Hey, I don't _always_ try to take the credit. Only when I deserve it, of course."

"Oh yeah, like that time when I was the one who blasted that giant demon to smithereens?"

"If it weren't for me wearing it down, you'd never have been in with a shout."

"Nice teamwork, you twit. I don't know why I still talk to you."

"You know you can't resist my devilish charm," Dante said sweetly.

"If by charm you actually mean utter idiocy, you're right. I need someone like you around to make me look even better."

He swooned, clutching at his heart. "Aw, that's hard, miss, awful hard!" Lady scowled and aimed a pistol at him. He moved to the side quickly and the bullet instead made contact with a tall Fetish. He gave her a thumbs-up but then the smile slid from his face as he caught sight of someone else entering the hall.

"Oh no. No no no." Lady followed Dante's gaze and she blinked in surprise at the sight. A tall teenager with messy black hair stood in the doorway. In one hand he held a long sword, its handle encrusted with huge glittering rubies.

"Friend of yours?" Lady asked with a quizzical look. Instead of answering, Dante simply stared in abject horror. What the hell was the kid thinking? What on earth could be going on in his obviously puny mind??

Harry looked back at Dante defiantly. Professor McGonagall had been reluctant to allow him to get Gryffindor's sword, but her protests were cut short at Dumbledore's intervention. He refused to sit back and wait while others did the work and it was impossible to know what was happening. This time at least there was nothing the devil hunter could do about it.

A Hell Pride suddenly realised that there was fresh prey. It swung round and lunged towards him. Dante opened his mouth to shout a warning but it was unneeded. Harry lifted his weapon and stabbed forwards fiercely. The demon stopped in its tracks, looking at the blade in surprise, as if it had not been expecting retaliation. Demons were not that easy to kill, however, and it wrenched itself away, almost pulling Harry's arm along with it. It screeched at him petulantly and slashed its scythe. Harry darted to the side and the scythe emedded itself in the stone floor.

"Kill it" Dante bawled despite being caught up in his own fight. "Finish it off right now!"

Harry tightened his grip on the sword's hilt and lifted it up higher, ready to bring it down swiftly. But something tugged at the back of his mind and stayed his hand. Could he really do it... weren't these things alive? And though he'd seen the monsters kill, he somehow couldn't do the same to them. He hesitated and that single moment almos cost his life. He span round as a puppet drenched in blood leapt at him, evil intentions in its yellow eyes.

But instead of latching on to Harry, it collided with something tall and clad in red leather. Dante caught the thing by the neck and snapped it easily.

"I..." Harry stammered. The demon hunter barely looked at him as he blasted a bullet through the Hell Pride's skull and then snatched Harry up by the elbow. He stalked into the Great Hall, leaving Lady to deal with the demons in the Entrance Hall for now.

"I'm inclined to think that you don't have a brain," Dante growled, releasing Harry. He rubbed his arm ruefully, glaring at the taller man. "Not only do you arrive without permission with that tooth-pick, you can't actually do anything useful with it. What the hell were you thinking? No, wait, you weren't think, of course."

"I just wanted to help," Harry muttered, looking furtively at his 'tooth-pick'.

Dante snorted. "Yeah, you'll be a lot of help when you can't actually kill anything."

Harry began to protest. Suddenly another new voice spoke, cutting across Harry's.

"Well well, certainly not what I would have expected from the great Harry Potter."

"Yeah, I completely agree," Dante nodded. His expression turned into one of comic surprise. "Wait a second. Who said that?"

"Hey," the voice said indignantly. "Don't say you've forgotten me already?"

"Erm..."

Leaning to the side a little, Harry saw the speaker, standing in the doorway, beyond which the battle still raged. It was a man who didn't look particularly old, but rather as if he had seen a lot in life. His face was thin and his hair was grey and dirty. Harry wrinkled his nose in distaste. Dante realised the man was standing behind him and turned round slowly. The look of surprise on his face turned to one of utter shock.

"You?"

"Me." Maro spread his arms wide. "Happy to see me again, eh, Dante?"

- - - - -

_A/N: Gah. I suck. I suck big time. Sorry!!!! Thank god for my personal writing coach or this might have taken even longer. Erm, hope none of you are dead... I did get reviews saying that people would die if I didn't hurry up... sorry..._


	10. Defending

**Chapter Ten - Defending**

As Dante dragged the puny kid into an adjoining hall, Lady found herself in the middle of the room, demons pressing in on all sides. Okay, now when had that happened? She certainly hadn't noticed. And she wasn't used to demons showing such intelligence. Who was co-ordinating this? Someone smart of course. Her mind automatically flicked through a long list of suspects, some of whom would dearly love a chance to get even with both her and Dante, not to mention Trish. Devil hunting could make you a few enemies in rather low places.

A Damned Rook's laser shot past her at that moment, blasting through several other demons, and almost slicing Lady herself. She'd been caught off-guard there, had to be more careful than that - she'd be of no use to Dante if she were dead. Of course it just had to be _now_ that he took off, precisely when the monsters had learnt the finer points of strategy.

Lady emptied another magazine of bullets, spraying the fire in a wide circle round her. Her attackers fell back a little before the hail of metal but then they were surging forward again, the roar of her gun lost in the screeching. "Dammit!" Well, fine, if that was how they wanted to play it... two could play that game.

Narrowly avoiding a marionette's throwing knives by bending backwards sharply, she reached behind her back and took hold of the handles of her largest weapon. Kalina Ann rested easily in her hands and it was as if the rocket launcher wanted to have a go at these demons, wanted to rip them to shreds. Lady wouldn't deny it that opportunity. Her finger pressed down -

"Wait! Do you know how long it'd take to repair the walls?"

Luckily for Lady, the demons were also surprised by this shout, or she would have been sliced into itty bitty pieces. With an irritated glare, she saw someone with ridiculously bright pink hair waving enthusiastically.

"Couldn't your wizard lot just fix it?" Lady pointed out as patiently as she could under the circumstances. The pink hair ruffled as the woman shook her head.

"A bit time-consuming, wouldn't you say? We've got bigger fish to fry. Anyway, name's Tonks. You must be Dante's girlfriend, am I right?"

"_No_!" Lady was incensed at the mere suggestion. Ugh, what a thought. Imagine being... on second thought, no, let's not imagine that. Just have a moment of pity for any previous girlfriends Dante might have had. Poor things. "We're just... erm..." Now she couldn't use the word 'partners' in case it gave this Tonks twit any silly ideas. "Colleagues. Yes."

Tonks seemed to realise that she had crossed some invisible line and prudently did not press the point. It would have been difficult to do so anyway, considering that the demons had recovered from their surprise and were attacking with renewed vigour. In resignation, Lady stowed Kalina Ann away once more and instead continued defending herself with her pistols. But she didn't have an everlasting supply of bullets unlike some people. Sneaking another look at Tonks, Lady was nearly sliced in half, having lapsed in concentration yet again. To her surprise, Tonks was actually doing pretty well against the demons, fighting with skill born of experience. She'd obviously faced the things before, waving some stick from which jets of light shot out and making painful contact with the monsters. That must be the magic thing.

Yet though there were now two of them battling the demons, the onslaught grew even fiercer. Lady found herself wishing that Tonks hadn't arrived, and then she'd have been able to use Kalina Ann without being told off.

"Where's Dante got to?" Tonks yelled. She narrowly avoided the blast from a Fallen's blade, leaping sideways in a very ungraceful movement.

"He's yelling at some kid," Lady called back. Come to think of it, just what was Dante doing? Surely he'd had enough of telling the boy off - God knew he got bored with that sotr of thing easily - so what exactly was holding him up? Suddenly concerned for her 'colleague', she turned, intending to head into the adjacent hall in order to yank the idiot out.

It was only now that she noticed someone was standing just inside the doorway and it certainly wasn't either Dante or the dark-haired boy. It was someone with lank grey hair, and someone she'd hoped never to see again, at least for a long time. As if he could sense her gaze, he glanced behind and grinned a shark's grin. And then her line of sight was broken as the door slammed shut, cutting her off from Dante, and Dante from aid.

Lady had a nasty feeling that things could only get worse.

- - - - - - - -

Dante caught sight of a flash of pink joining the fray in the Entrance Hall. Harry saw it too and realised that Tonks must have made an appearance. His eyes quickly returned to the man who was now staring expectantly at Dante. His words had knocked Dante off-balance but the demon slayer quickly regained composure, rearranging his expression of shock into one of indifference.

"This isn't a dream?"

The stranger appeared a little put out by this response to his dramatic entrance. "Unfortunately for you, no."

Dante sighed theatrically. "I thought as much. If it were, I'd be locked in here with a couple of beautiful girls. Not that," he added as an aside to Harry, "you're bad-looking. You're just not my type. No offence."

"None taken," Harry said faintly. How could Dante take the situation so lightly? Who was this man, who seemed to know Dante?

"Good." Dante's attention now returned to the intruder, whose face was a picture of confusion. "What the hell do you think you're doing here, I chucked you into hell months ago."

The man nodded, as if in sad remembrance. "You did, Dante, and very rude of you it was too. But you should know as well as -" He suddenly broke off with a frown and turned to look at something behind him. Harry was unable to see what had attracted the man's attention but the door slammed shut. He was now uncomfortably aware that the three were locked in, with little chance of help for at least a while.

"Where was I... oh yes. You threw me into hell but you of all people should know that it is perfectly possible to return. You've done it enough time now."

Harry looked up sharply at Dante's face. _Hell_? But of course, there'd always been something strange about him. Even admitting that Harry disliked him, there was no getting round that fact. And really, popping in and out of hell wasn't so out of the ordinary, after everything Harry had seen. It was just... unexpected.

Dante only shrugged, unconcerned. "Don't worry. I'll be throwing you back in soon enough. And I'll keep on doing it until you learn your lesson, Maro." The man laughed, almost giggled, at the sound of his name, a strangely liquid sound in comparison to his rasping voice. There was a soft click and then Maro was grasping something in his right hand - a long, slender piece of wood, tapering to a deadly point, a metal handle and tipped with what looked like silver.

Now Dante laughed and Harry knew the demon slayer had been tensed, worried about what this man might plan. He felt a lurch of guilt as he realised that most of Dante's concern was probably for his safety.

"Stakes are for vampires, Maro. What exactly do you plan on doing with that splinter?"

"Splinter?" Maro's voice was filled with mock sorrow. He raised it and pointed to something scratched into the silver tip. "I'm fairly sure you know this symbol. Doing the sort of job you do, you've probably seen it." Quicker than Harry's eyes could follow, Maro's hand flicked up. The stake shot through the air with a high-pitched whistling, deadlier than a bullet.

And Dante simply twitched his head out of the way, the stake zipping past, and causing no damage to anyone at all.

"Nice one. Maybe next time you could aim -"

He broke off with a sharp cry and stumbled forward. Pain flared in his right hand and for a moment or two he forgot where he was. It shouldn't… hurt so much, it shouldn't feel as if acid were corroding his skin and flesh. He had recognised the symbol of the pentagram of course – which were used to ward off evil, not the other way round – and that was why he'd chosen to avoid the weapon but…

Realising he'd shut his eyes against the pain, he forced them open and grimaced at what he saw. The stake had pierced his hand through the back and shot through the front. The wound was covered in blood but he could hear a faint hissing. Even as he looked, his skin seemed to peel back to show white bone and dark muscle.

The only thing his stunned mind could come up with was, _Ewwww_.

Maro watched, his face empty of expression. "Of course, I took extra precautions other than the pentagram. Holy Water won't be fatal but, well, as you've no doubt noticed, it still has some unpleasant effects." His hand moved again, almost imperceptibly. The stake ripped itself from Dante's hand, drawing a gasp from him, and Maro snatched it deftly from the air.

"That's a neat trick," Dante said, almost spitting out the words. He was not so much angry as highly irritated at being caught out like this. Especially in front of the kid, who had gone an interesting beige colour. If the situation weren't so serious, Dante might have rolled his eyes at the boy's squeamishness.

Problem now was that his body wasn't repairing itself as fast as it should be, the Holy Water preventing his demon recovery to work and leaving his right hand utterly useless. It was also clouding his mind, the liquid working its way through his veins now.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" he continued, hoping vaguely that if he kept talking long enough, his hand would eventually sort itself out. That, or someone would actually come and help. _Dammit Lady! What the hell's keeping you?_

Maro, however, was having none of it. "Look, Dante, I didn't find my way out of hell by falling for every ruse or trick that came my way. If I just stayed here and chatted, no doubt you'd be just fine within maybe ten minutes. But I haven't got ten minutes, I'm afraid, so –"

Again his hand moved swiftly. Harry, forgotten by Maro, leapt in front of the demon slayer, dropping Gryffindor's sword and pulling out his wand. Dante snarled at him furiously and shoved him aside quickly. As Harry stumbled, something sliced lightly across his cheek. He put his hand to the cut, expecting to feel some sort of acid working at his skin but to his surprise there was nothing, just drops of blood. Dante on the other hand was faring much worse. He'd planned to dodge the bloody stake but when the boy got in the way, he couldn't let him risk injury, and in pushing Harry away, he'd left himself wide open. It entered through his right shoulder, tearing his deltoid muscles to shreds, ripping tendons and ligaments apart.

Dante stumbled backwards, clutching at his injured shoulder. This time Maro made no move to retrieve his weapon, content to leave it embedded in the flesh. Instead he looked at Harry, smirking.

"Oh dear," he said sardonically, "look what you've done. You know," he added in an almost wistful tone, "it's a pity I can't kill you, since I'm not allowed to kill Dante either. My, er, esteemed colleague put special emphases on the fact that you are his."

"You mean Voldemort?" Harry said in scorn. Maro looked amused.

"I suppose so... I find it much more entertaining to call him Tom. Poor man doesn't seem to like it very much." His face became vague suddenly, as if he were remembering some other place he should be. "I'd better be going now... oh yes, Dante." The demon slayer grunted irritably. "I did have a message for you, something along the lines of that there's someone in hell who'd just _love_ to meet up again. Come to think of it, there's quite a few."

"Are you telling me that one of those bastards sent you?"

"Maybe. You'll have to find out for yourself. Goodbye for now." With that, Maro turned his back on them to leave.

"Wait!" Harry shouted, his wand raised high. "_Stup -_"

At that moment the doors blasted apart into a thousand splinters. Harry flung up an arm to protect his face and when he looked again, Maro was nowhere to be seen.

- - - - - - - -

Lady began to notice that mixing among the demons were what seemed to be humans, wearing dark cloaks and ridiculous looking masks. The demons did not make any distinction between herself and these others, so whoever these people were, they couldn't be the demons's masters. The real brains was hiding out somewhere and obviously unconcerned for the humans's wellbeing.

"Eaters!" Tonks yelled at Lady. Lady paused long enough to shoot a quizzical look at the witch.

"What do they eat?"

"They're Death Eaters! You-Know-Who's followers!"

Lady paused a moment longer. "No, I don't know who!"

Tonks had no time to offer an explanation, caught up in a sudden duel with two of the cloaked humans. Lady returned her attention to her own troubles and saw with surprise that a couple of the humans were making a beeline for her. Bloody hell. But when they realised she wasn't using a stick but guns instead, they checked, whispering hurriedly among themselves. Then one raised his voice in anger at his companions.

"Look, she's one of the demon slayers you fool, we're supposed to leave her -"

"She's a frigging Muggle! Are you telling me you're scared of a _Muggle_?"

"No, I'm scared of whatever the hell it is she's carrying."

"Muggle weapons!"

Lady bore the arguing for a second longer and then squeezed the trigger twice quickly. The bullets smashed into the 'Death Eaters' shoulders. They collapsed to the floor, writhing and screeching.

"Toughen up," she said to them in disgust and then froze as she heard shouts from behind her, beyond the closed doors of the adjacent hall. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

She unhooked Kalina Ann from her back, ignoring Tonks's demands that the bazooka be put away. Another Death Eater who'd seen her assault on the other two backed away hurriedly and nearly tripped over his cloak.

_BOOM_.

The doors shattered, shards of wood blasted everywhere. A couple of large splinters pierced a demon or two. Lady ran blindly through the dust left by the destruction and only stopped when she realised she might very well knock someone over if she didn't wait for the dust to clear.

"Dante!" she called. "You there?"

She was answered by a groan and a breathless "Over here!". The groan belonged to Dante and the speech must have belonged to the kid. As the dust finally settled, she saw that the boy was also holding a stick and staring at a space just to her right. She brushed past him impatiently and moved towards Dante who was staggering up, his left arm clutching up at the opposite shoulder. As she advanced, intending to help, he yanked and ripped out something in a lovely bright red spray of blood. With an amused glance Lady noticed the boy looked faintly sick.

"That damn son of a bitch," Dante said vehemently.

"You all right Dante?"

"Does it look like it?" he growled, voice full of resentment. "The bastard used Holy Water. What do _you_ think I feel like?"

Lady pursed her lips. "Just because the guy got you doesn't mean you can take it out on me."

He said nothing more, busily checking his wound, gingerly pulling the leather of his coat away. "_And_ he ruined my freaking coat." Harry frowned. Dante seemed terribly injured and all he could do was complain about his coat.

"Why don't you go to the hospital wing?" he suggested a little tentatively. Dante looked as if he'd quite like to snap at Harry, but relented.

"Nah, it's not so bad. Anyway, I've got a score to settle." With that he straightened properly and made his way into the Entrance Hall. Lady followed quickly, remembering the amount of demons that had been in there. To her surprise however, they were all gone, even the Death Eaters. Only Tonks was left, looking bewildered.

"Some guy just appeared, barked an order at them, and they all left," she explained. "Don't know where he came from, you can't Apparate…"

Dante paid little attention and stalked towards a broom cupboard, anger smouldering in his icy eyes. He wrenched open the door and smiled nastily at the possessed girl within.

"Come on," he told her, grabbing her by the arm, dragging her out, "the repo man is here."

- - - - - - - -

_A/N: GAH! I keep saying I'll update quicker and I don't! Just be glad I've got my own personal writing coach, otherwise it'd probably take even longer. I don't know what I think of this chapter. It took me ages to figure out how to start it. When I began writing Maro's bit, I was absolutely loathing him and I hated having to write him. By the end of it though, I was actually liking him. I think I like bad guys who act sort of vague and yet are obviously evil, which is what I see him as now. I won't make any promises about updating quicker, because I reckon that just jinxes it. Until next time, folks!_


	11. Repo Man

**Chapter Eleven - Repo Man**

Harry watched as Dante fussed over the candles placed carefully round the room, which gave off various heavy scents, clouding Harry's mind a little. There were also dishes filled with herbs, some on the floor and a couple placed on the bed itself, right next to the prone body of the girl. Dante had also lit some incense and now the air was full of thick fumes, floating languidly near the ceiling. Harry rather thought it was a bit overkill, to be honest.

Lady thought so too, rolling her eyes when Dante shifted a candle half an inch to the right. When he put it back, and then ponderingly moved it to the left instead, she exclaimed, "For the love of god, it's fine where it is. Leave the bloody thing!"

Dante glared at her. "Lady," he began, as if to a toddler, "it's got to be perfect, otherwise everything will be messed up."

"Oh come on, half an inch out of place won't make any difference and you know it."

He huffed but left the candle alone. Twenty minutes ago he had drawn a symbol on the floor with excruciating care, ensuring that every line was of the correct length. It was a five-pointed star enclosed within a circle and at each point he'd placed a candle held in a tall candlestick. While he worked at drawing the symbol with a piece of chalk, he had explained his actions to Harry.

"That girl who opened the doors wasn't in her right mind. I wasn't completely sure at first but I was certain when she was doing the whole screeching thing. She must have been possessed by a demon that other time she went outside. Frigging idiot. As I explained to your Headmistress woman, demons have to have a sort of vessel otherwise their spirit disintegrates, though that only happens with the weak ones."

"What happens to the stronger ones then?" Harry asked with interest.

"Oh they can usually sort themselves out with another form, depends on how strong they are and what their nature is and that sort of crap. Anyway, unfortunately for us, one of those weaker demons managed to get at the girl and possess her and that's pretty unusual really. Demons don't really go in for possessing midgets - I mean, young kids. Far too weak. This one's obviously smarter than most."

"So what do we do now?"

Dante raised his head to grin at Harry. "Exorcise her, of course. What else? You ever seen that _Exorcist_ film?"

"Erm, no."

"Nor have I. Heard it was good though, maybe I'll rent it and watch it with Trish, Lady doesn't really go for movies." He realised that he was digressing and forced himself to get back on track. "Anyway, we've got to force the demon out of that girl before it can do any damage. If it hasn't done any already, that is."

Harry's forehead wrinkled in a frown. "What do you mean?"

Dante didn't answer straight away. He straightened, taking a look at his handiwork and then moved on to measuring the next line. "Demons are pretty malicious things. They'll sometimes extinguish the mind of whoever they're possessing. That way, no fighting for ownership of the body, see? But that makes it a right pain to control. I think our friend hasn't messed with the girl's mind yet, but it might, if it realised what we were doing..."

Harry nodded in understanding. He didn't like to imagine an alien presence in his mind, trying to control his body. He gestured at the candles and dishes of herbs and incense, which at that moment were by the door, brought in earlier by Tonks and Lady. Lady, to her slight surprise, had taken a liking to the pink-haired woman. "What's all this stuff for?"

Dante glanced up and saw Harry indicating the candles. "That stuff? Demons don't like those sorts of smells. Things like rosemary, hazel, rowan tree... it messes with their senses and so it should make it easier to get rid of whatever's possessing that kid. And it should deter it from trying any other possessions. Still, we have to cover up mirrors and that sort of thing, otherwise it can take refuge in there. I try not to leave anything to chance." His thoroughness was quite a change from his previous attitude and it took Harry by surprise.

Eventually he had been satisfied with his pentagram. Dante had told Harry that it was another thing demons tended to dislike and that a lot of idiotic people had got it wrong about the pentagram being a symbol for the devil, as it was actually meant to protect against evil. He had looked so annoyed about this that Harry quickly assured him that he did see the pentagram as a force for good or whatever, though he'd never actually seen it before. Harry had also asked about crucifixes and was duly informed that demons had been around way before Christianity and that crap was just a myth, only used by idiots who wanted to look good.

Lady ventured inside with the last of the candles which were deceptively heavy. She dropped it by the door with a clang and ignored Dante's protest.

"So what's the kid in here for?"

"I'm seventeen," Harry pointed out, rather tired of being called a kid all the time. Neither of the demon hunters paid him much attention.

"He's got bottle," Dante said shortly, picking up two candles with ease. "And he doesn't do as he's told, and that means he'll be useful." Harry thought about protesting but decided it was a compliment and let the matter lie. Ron and Hermione had demanded that he tell them what happened and if he argued with Dante, he might very well be kicked out.

And now everything seemed to be set. Dante had ordered that all mirrors be carried out of the room, or at least covered over with black cloth. A few people were hanging around on the other side of the door, including the third girl who'd ventured into the grounds. Despite her pleading, Dante had refused to allow her into the room.

He also had a long thing stick in his hand. Harry had wondered what it was for and found out as Dante stepped closer to the bed and then jabbed the girl in the arm with his stick. Harry started in surprise. Lady seemed unconcerned. The girl, who had been quiescent, suddenly bolted upwards with a cry of rage, her face twisting in an inhuman expression. Instead of recoiling, Dante poked the girl in the chest with his stick.

"Shut it," he said cheerfully. The girl - or the demon - did not shut it. Dante frowned a little. "No, seriously, shut up. You're giving me a headache." If he'd expected silence, he was disappointed.

Lady raised an eyebrow. "Come on Dante, get on with it."

"How am I supposed to concentrate with this racket? Oh _fine_," he finished at a look from his 'colleague'. He dropped the stick, fished out a grubby piece of paper from one of his pockets and proceeded to read it in a monotone.

_"Exorciso te, in_... how do you say this? Nom..._ nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Jesu Christi Filii eius, Domini et Judicis nostri_...oh for crying out loud," Dante said exasperatedly, throwing a look of irritation at Lady. "What the hell is this crap?" The girl was no longer yelling but snickering at his expense.

"You asked for an exorcism chant, I gave it to you. Hurry up."

Dante had another stab at reading it but after about five words he screwed the paper up into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. "Latin crap, whatever. They're just words anyway." He stepped forward so that he was right next to the bed now. "You. Out. Now."

For a moment Harry suspected Dante was wrong and that telling the demon to go without using some sort of special words would never work. But the girl made a sort of choking noise and then suddenly there were two voices - one sobbing and the other hissing frantically, its words running together unintelligibly. Dante seemed to get the gist of it though.

"Look, it's bad enough you possessed a kid but because of you my coat's been ruined so I want some compensation if you don't -"

He found it difficult to continue - maybe he was extremely upset about his coat or maybe it was the fact that the girl had leaned forward suddenly, grabbed the front of his coat, and pulled him towards her and forced their lips to meet. As she did so, an amulet suddenly fell from inside Dante's shirt and dangled from a fine silver chain, light reflecting from it so that it seemed to wink.

Harry was left speechless. Lady also remained silent although Harry had a feeling that she would have quite liked to shoot something, Dante preferably.

Dante broke away from the girl almost immediately. The girl's eyes were glazed but the voice that came from her mouth was sharp, alert, and filled with dark amusement.

"You don't like me?" she asked in mock sorrow. Dante didn't even seem put off his stride.

"Sorry but I don't really go for younger types. Maybe if you'd possessed someone older..." Lady kicked at his ankle, drawing a wince from him. "Hey, at least I'm not hitting on the possessed teenager! I'm just saying - ow! Quit kicking my ankle! This is why you can't get a boyfriend." With this final insight into Lady's love life, Dante darted forward out of range of Lady's boot. He gripped the teen's wrist with a hand like a vice. His other hand slipped into a pocket and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid. To Harry it just appeared to be water. But as soon as the demon caught sight of it, it gave a thin cry of rage.

Dante smirked at it. "That's right. A dose of Ye Olde Holy Water should do wonders for your complexion." He flicked the stopper off with his thumb and Harry noticed that Dante was careful not to spill any, not even on himself. He suddenly remembered that Maro had said something about Holy Water and the first seeds of suspicioun sprung up in his mind.

The demon had fixed the girl's eyes upon the vial and had twisted her face into a grotesque mask that did not even seem human. Dante was unmoved by its expression. The vial tipped slightly.

"No!"

"You either get out now," Dante said slowly, enunciating clearly, "or I pour this down your throat. So it's either nice peaceful retreat or horrible pain."

"Well that's a fair choice," the demon answered with a touch of sarcasm. Lady grinned a little.

"Sounds just like you, Dante. Not related are you?"

Dante shot a look of irritation at her, his eyes flicking almost imperceptibly at Harry. "Shut up and quit interrupting me when I'm so obviously busy! Now just get out before I -" He gestured threateningly with the vial, patience finally gone, and the liquid began to run from it.

Before any could spill, the girl wrenched her arm from Dante's grip. Harry started forward, drawing his wand in case of trouble but he halted at a look from Lady. With a sort of retching sound, the girl's mouth opened wide and from it a dense black cloud issued forth, curling languidly.

For a single moment this substance seemed to take the appearance of a grimacing skull and was solid. It darted this way and that, seeking escape but it was unable to venture further than the boundaries of the pentagram within which it was imprisoned. All three of them watched closely but a second later, with a final screech of pain, it flew forward straight at Dante. Before it made any contact with him, the cloud dissipated, like dust particles, falling harmlessly.

As the echoes of the scream faded, the girl blinked slowly like someone waking from deep sleep. She looked as if she'd quite like to go back to sleep but Dante clapped his hands sharply right in front of his face and then grinned at her expression.

"There we go, bright eyed and bushy-tailed!" he announced cheerfully. He turned to look at Lady. "You know, I need a catchphrase."

"Since when did you need a catchphrase?"

"Well, I'm a hero!" Dante explained as if to a child. "All the heroes have catchphrases. Like, Spider-Man: does everything a spider can! Or a snappy name, y'know, Batman is the Dark Knight and the Caped Crusader. Like that."

Lady suppressed a yawn. "How about the Red Coated Imbecile?"

He shook his head. "No, it's supposed to make me sound good." At that moment he realised that his amulet was in full view and saw Harry looking at it curiously. With a frown, Dante spun round quickly and tucked it back inside his shirt. It felt cool against his skin.

"It's done then?" Harry asked.

"Yup. Demon exorcised successfully thanks to my supreme expertise and minimal assistance from Lady there. No need to thank me, it's what I'm here for. Just hope it teaches the rest of you lot to stay inside." The girl looked rather guilty at these words. Dante noticed. "Yeah, no more little expeditions. Got it?" She nodded. "Good. C'mon, get outta here now, I got a lot of cleaning up to do."

She didn't need telling twice: she left quickly, with Lady following close behind in case of side-effects. Harry hung back, wanting to ask some more questions that had just moved to the forefront of his mind. Dante, who was blowing out the candles, looked at him quizzically.

"Show's over, you can go and tell your mates about it now if you want. I'll be all right cleaning up myself."

"Yeah." Harry didn't move. "I wanted to ask about that guy... erm, Maro?"

The demon hunter glared at him suspiciously. "What about him?"

"I was just wondering if you'd met him before. I mean, you two seemed to know each other well."

"That so?" Dante picked up three of the candlesticks and moved them over by the door. "Yeah, we've crossed paths. Must be about nine months I guess. He was a crackpot then and he's still a crackpot. His stay in hell doesn't seem to have done him any favours, last time I saw him his hair was still dark, not all grey. He's not as old as he looks. Anyway, a while ago there was an unusual amount of demon activity down in Florida. Me, Lady and Trish went to have a look. Lady only came because she wanted to go to Disney World but that's a bit beside the point."

He gathered up the plates of incense and tipped them into a rubbish bin. "So, after we've been on that Big Thunder Mountain Ride, we got to actually investigating. We found that someone was trying to open a way into hell - that's nothing new - but this guy was also trying to summon one of the most powerful demons. Well, I guess he _was_ one of the most anyway."

"What do you mean?"

Dante gave him a smirk. "Oh, the big bad Devil Emperor Mundus was no match for my superior skills."

Harry was barely aware that his mouth had fallen open. "Emperor?"

"Uh huh. What?" he added suspiciously, seeing Harry's expression. "You think I'm lying?"

"No!" Harry shook his head quickly. "It's just that I didn't think..." He trailed off but Dante understood his meaning well enough. The demon hunter sighed.

"Yeah. I'm not one of your magical lot, am I? I can't do any of your spells. But I told you there's more than one kind of magic, didn't I? Plus, you lot aren't exactly brilliant at fighting the demons. That's why I'm here. Anyway, this idiot was trying to summon Mundus which he found a bit difficult since Mundus was licking his wounds at the time. He didn't take losing very well, poor guy. We took care of the guy in Florida. That was Maro. It wasn't exactly simple but in the end I threw him into the underworld and shut the portal. Guy's been stuck in there since then. But... he's got out somehow and that's bad news. The demons must have come the same way as him and he's a lot more dangerous now. Hell does funny things to you. Thing is, I can't think of anywhere that he could have come out... it's difficult to open doors, especially from within the underworld. Of course, when I say doors, I mean big portals that anything could get through. There's always cracks, or I'd be out of a job. He couldn't fit through a crack though, there must be _somewhere_ that I don't know about..."

He fell to silent musing for a moment or two, blinked, and then seemed to realise that Harry was still around. A scowl passed across his face. "Curiosity satisfied now? If it is, get the hell out."

For a second Harry thought about asking something else - maybe about that 'other magic' Dante kept mentioning. Another look at his face changed his mind and Harry backed out the room swiftly, almost bumping into Ron who was hanging around nearby.

Dante watched the kid leave, wisely hurrying, and then sat on the edge of the bed, stretching his arms widely. He was feeling tired, he had to admit, and events had been moving along far too quickly for his liking. First the outside fight, then this. The bastard was piling on the pressure. He longed to just get out there and unleash on the demons, but more would follow. No, the important thing was to find their portal, their entrance point, and then seal it. Or better yet, destroy it entirely. He picked irritably at his torn coat as he thought.

And the matter of this Lord Voldemort was not making things any simpler. From what Dante had gleaned, it seemed Voldemort and Harry had some sort of vendetta going on. He didn't like this. It meant that Harry was liable to just take off or something stupid like that. He'd have to keep a close eye -

Without warning a sudden burning sensation flashed across his chest and round his neck. _What?_ He grabbed the chain of the amulet, flinching as it burned his fingers. The jewel embedded in the silver winked at him and as it rotated slowly on the chain, Dante saw his own reflection in the metal, obscured a little by the inscription.

In that moment, he suddenly realised. Even as he watched, dark mist oozed from it.

"Oh, _fu­-_"

- - - - - - - -

_A/N: Heh... yo, Lady Luce, you better be happy, I gave you your bloody fanservice! Pretty fun writing it though. Who knows, maybe I'll actually progress to yaoi someday? (Yeah, sure). I enjoyed writing this chapter. Not much action I guess but y'know, can't be fighting demons every day. As to the exorcism bit, I made most of it up (I quite like making my own things up, less research). I don't get the whole 'crucifixes will save you!' thing, I figure demons have been around WAY before Christianity. And way before Latin, so that's why I reckon that'd be useless. I was gonna carry on with this chapter but then I felt it'd be dragging on and on. I think I'd rather take care of stuff in my next chapter. I'm sure you've all got at least SOME idea what's gonna happen but only two people know exactly what's next and one of those people is me. Not making any promises about writing faster. I think I wasn't too bad this time round. In any case..._

_'Til next time, folks! (Oh yeah, and a quick hello to my English/Citizenship/ICT buddy, she knows who she is!)_

_If anyone cares, that Latin bit means something like: "I exorcise you, in the name of the almight God our father, and in the name of his son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Judge." Similar to that at least._


	12. Repossessed

**Chapter Twelve - Repossessed**

Lady followed the young girl closely as she made her way to the Hospital Wing with her friend. Lady's presence silenced any students who tagged along out of curiosity. Ideally, the exorcism should have taken place in the Hopital Wing but the nurse, when she saw Dante's candles and incense, shooed him out rapidly with fussing hands. As the girl could keel over any second, Lady kept a careful eye on her, though she seemed to be perfectly fine, if a little flustered. 

After ensuring both girls arrived safely and the nurse could take over - "Make sure she gets enough to eat, she's just had two spirits hanging out inside her body," Lady explained to a baffled Madam Pomfrey - Lady set off on her own little trek round the castle corridors. Dante would be clearing up and she had no urge to help out. In any case, the prat was bound to try and make her sweep up, sexist pig that he was, as well as a whole host of other unmentionable things. 

She had to admit it was good to see him again. After six months in Asia, his insults and stubborn ways were sort of refreshing. But she couldn't understand how the hell Trish put up with him day in, day out. _I wonder if it counts as ironic that I cleared off and the carbon copy of his mother hung around? _

To be quite honest, she supposed she _had_ sort of missed him. In a way. The way you missed the only person who dared to make fun of you. And there had been some pretty good times, plus that trip to Disneyland. Plus it was a comfort to know you were fighting alongside someone who was very difficult to kill and stronger than pretty much all the lesser demons they came across. They'd made a good team and -

"Hang on," Lady interjected her own thoughts, frowning. "For every good time there's probably five other times he's been his usual sexist pig self and tried to make me do the dishes, or sweep up, or even _cook_." For the record, Lady wasn't a bad cook but she generally ignored any of Dante's demands for a fry-up. Her skills were more for pasta, or occasionally curry. Whatever. She was _not_ Dante's frigging lapdog. 

Okay, that sounded a teensy bit weird. Moving on.

Rounding a corner, she almost bumped into a trio of students, one of which she recognised. "Did he kick you out or something?" Lady asked, raising an eyebrow as she noticed that the red-haired teen seemed to have very little control over the direction of his gaze. 

"Uh, yeah, he was just finishing cleaning up." Harry had also noticed Ron's face, as had Hermione, who managed to stamp on Ron's foot. 

Lady decided to ignore all this. "I'd better go make sure he hasn't expired from the shock of having to tidy up. I guess you three better get going. It's been a long day and... stuff." Could you tell that Lady didn't have much experience dealing with kids? She had more patience with them than Dante had, at any rate. With a sort of vague wave, Lady brushed past them. Now she just had to find her way back... couldn't be that hard, she had been travelling in a circle.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched her for a moment and then quickly went on their own way. Harry had been in the middle of explaining his latest theory to them before they were interrupted and now he carried on, voice quick in excitement. 

"Right, so earlier when that Maro guy was here, he chucked a stake at Dante, like I told you. And _then_ what he said was that he'd soaked it in Holy Water or something, I'm certain he said Holy Water."

Hermione frowned. "But why would he need Holy Water to fight Dante?"

"That's what I'm telling you!" Harry exclaimed. "When Dante was exorcising the girl, he took out this vial of liquid and it was definitely Holy Water. I think that stuff's bad for those demons and the funny thing is, he was careful not to spill any on himself. It hurt him badly when he got hit by the stake."

For once, Ron understood a little quicker than Hermione. "You reckon he's a _demon_?" Hermione (in her stereotypically female way) clapped a hand over her mouth. 

"But how can he be?" she protested - after removing her hand, obviously. "He doesn't look like a demon at all, he looks entirely human to me."

Ron began some comment - quite possibly something along the lines of how Hermione wouldn't want to think anything bad of dear Dante - but Harry cut across him, eager to think up more ideas: "He _looks_ human, but for one thing his hair's bright white but he's not really old. Plus, he's way stronger than any human could be, he can do loads of things that humans can't. Like when he did his disappearing trick when he first came _and_ he can recover from just about anything! Remember when he got himself stabbed by that exhaust pipe?" Hermione made a noise of disgusted protest but she could already see the logic of what Harry was suggesting. 

Another memory had occurred to Harry. "There was something else. He kept talking about 'other magic'. I asked him once how he could do all that stuff and all he told me was that there's more than one kind of magic. I think he means that demons have magic too, but it's completely different from ours and that's why our spells never seem to work properly."

Explanation finished, he looked between the two eagerly. Ron seemed convinced already, and Hermione was unable to pick any holes in Harry's theory, something which he was particularly happy about. For once he'd been the one to figure it out. It does a lot for a guy's self-esteem, you know. 

"But he's not bad," Hermione emphasised, tacitly admitting that she could not dispute that Dante was most likely a demon. "And I think he's only part demon anyway."

Harry nodded. "I guess he's sort of like Lupin. What's confusing me is how he can have at least one demon par -"

"Don't go there!" Ron cut across him, looking stricken. "I don't want to get into the logistics of all this, those things are _hideous_."

As the snickers died away, a yell of rage echoed through the corridors, the voice worryingly familiar. The three exchanged glances and then another shout came, this time with words:

"_DANTE, GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!_"

"Hey, this sounds like fun," Harry noted, recognising the voice as Lady's. "I say we go check it out."

Lady hoped that Dante had finished cleaning already. She didn't fancy being dragged into an argument over whether, as a woman, she should perform all cleaning duties since Dante, as a man, couldn't do it, of course. She paused outside the door for a moment, listening. Satisfied that it was silent inside, meaning that he had finished tidying, she entered.

"That went pretty well, don't you - what the hell are you doing?"

Dante was standing in front of a full-length mirror that he seemed to have dragged in from another room. He had discarded his ruined coat and was peering at his reflection. This would have been fine, perfectly normal even, if not for -

"Are you _posing_?" Lady's voice was filled with justified surprise. He started as if he had only just noticed her arrival and stopped his posturing on tip-toes and bared his teeth in a rather creepy grin. 

"Hi..." A pause. "Lady!" 

She ventured in warily, noting that the room was spotless. "You've got a lot done," she admitted grudgingly with a confused glance at Dante, which quickly turned into a heavy scowl as she saw the lowered direction of his gaze. "Get lost!"

"Girl, what _were_ you thinking when you got that outfit?" he asked in an affected tone. Lady gaped at him. 

"_What_?"

"I mean, lots of cleavage is all very well and good for girls with, you know, big _assets_." Dante made a vague circular motion near his chest. "But in your case... well, it's not as if you've got that much to show off, you know?"

There was half a second of stunned silence before she yanked out a pistol with a strangled cry of pure rage. Dante, having anticipated this, ducked out the door and shot off down the corridor, cackling madly. Lady fired a bullet, missed, and set off in hot pursuit, and shrieked at him, "_DANTE, GET YOUR SORRY ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!_"

His response was a whoop of delight. 

Dante fled along the corridors, unable to contain his manic laughter, attracting shocked looks from students who were knocked over like bowling pins if they were too stunned to move. He kept a straight course as far as possible, only taking turns when necessary. He was bound to end up somewhere interesting this way and it'd be best to be as far from Lady as possible, seeing as she now had a strong desire to shoot him. Then again, that was nothing new. 

Ahead he spotted a trio and immediately saw that the girl's hair was very bushy and very messy. He skidded to a stop. The poor girl obviously needed some advice on coping with the disaster that was her hair. All three stared at him. 

"Straighteners," he announced. Ron and Harry looked blank and Hermione herself appeared mystified. "Straighteners, and some decent conditioner," Dante emphasised, his sharp ears catching the sound of Lady's furious footsteps. "You should try it out sometime, darling, it might just fix that bird's nest of a hairstyle." A reassuring smile and he was off again. 

Before Ron had a chance to ask what straighteners were supposed to be, Lady had arrived on the scene, almost crashing into Harry. He flinched slightly at her thunderous expression. 

"Where'd he go?" she growled. On seeing that she had a gun, Harry pointed along the corridor. 

"That _bastard_, I'll make him sorry he was ever born, I'll make Temen-Ni-Gru look like a walk in a park! First I'll rip him limb from limb, then I'll gouge out his eyes - no, I'll pull out his guts and _then_ gouge out his eyes." 

With other such delightful imagery, Lady continued her chase, the echoes of her pounding boots drawing many curious students along. They had never known so many scandals in so short a time and obviously the excitement was too much for the poor things. 

Dante meanwhile had slowed to a stop, hiding behind a convenient tapestry that he'd found which happened to conceal a passageway. Here he caught his breath, sucking in huge gasps of air, hands on knees. After a few seconds of this, his breathing grew more regular and he fell silent to listen for pursuers. Anyone with him then would have seen something strange: for a few seconds an inane grin was plastered across his face, before it was replaced by a grimace then a scowl and then forced back into a stretched smile. It was almost as if his face was unable to decide what expression best suited it. He froze when he heard Lady running past, muttering curses under her breath at top speed. 

After she had gone, he slipped out carefully, cast a look round, saw no one and then paused as if considering what to do. Almost immediately the grin returned and he groaned. 

_Not the Great Hall, please! _Any_where but there!_

That's right! Fear not, loyal readers, for Dante has not lost his mind, what there was of it anyway. Even he wasn't insane enough to actually say those things to Lady's _face_ or at least within earshot of her. Observant readers may have picked up on the ending of the last chapter and guessed what was happening. If so, well done, but no prizes. Nope, not even a golden ticket to Florida. For those who are a little slower on the uptake... 

The exorcised demon had not simply dissipated. When Dante's silver amulet had tumbled out his shirt, it had spotted its chance in the reflection of the jewel and managed to make good its escape into the silver. And then of course, the moment Dante had been left alone, the demon had managed to slip out and take possession. Another interesting fact was that this particular demon just so happened to be female. All of which conspired to create a huge amount of embarrassment for poor Dante. 

_Oh yes the Great Hall_, the demon answered gleefully. _I don't know what you're so worried about anyway, this doesn't seem to be much of a deviation from your usual behaviour, Mr Demon Slayer._

_I'm far more subtle._

_Nobody likes a liar. Come on, just sit back and enjoy the show!_

Unfortunately there was little else that Dante could do. The stupid thing had already made him look a fool and he couldn't see much else that it might do to make things worse for him. And Lady's face had been quite a sight to see and he could always avoid punishment by blaming the demon. 

_Just not anything too... degrading, yeah?_

Dante found the lack of response rather ominous as his body was steered towards the Great Hall. What was it going to do? Start a food fight? That would be OK, really. Everyone loved food fights. And it was the sort of thing he might do if he were really bored anyway. As long as Minnie wasn't there of course. 

He would have preferred to slip in quietly - sneak attack, that sort of thing - but the demon had other ideas and banged the doors open and stood between them, hands on hips, looking for all the world like some conquering crusader. Which it was, in a way. Since it was lunchtime, the hall was quite full, or as full as it got these days, and every head in the room swivelled round to stare at him. 

_Maximum exposure_, the demon said in delight and laughed when Dante gave a despairing groan. 

What the students in the hall saw was this:

Dante walked into the expansive room - or, _minced_ might be more appropriate, with his hips going from side to side (_his_ hips certainly don't lie) with every single eye on him. Slowing down, he had a quick look round and his gaze fell on a particular seventh year sitting at the Gryffindor table. Neville Longbottom, seated at the end nearest Dante, glanced up and realised he was being stared at. He audibly swallowed as Dante ambled over. 

As everyone's eyes followed closely, Dante reached into one of his trouser pockets and drew out a scrap of paper which was crumpled and yellow, with something scrawled on it. It might once have been a business card though it was now dog-eared and spoke volumes about the card's owner. The scrawl was a telephone number. 

He drew to a halt beside Neville whose face was a comic picture of apprehension. Dante bent down. Neville leaned back. Dante bent down some more. Neville tried to lean back further but was met with the tricky proposition of leaning through the table and he looked up in utter horror as Dante put his mouth next to the boy's ear and whispered, slipping the paper into Neville's limp hand: "My number's on there. Call me."

Having imparted this message, Dante stepped away from a very relieved Neville and continued his trek. Catching sight of a small door which was conveniently placed close to the staff table, he made a beeline for it, grinning at a bunch of Slytherins, tipping a wink to a Hufflepuff or two. He tipped an imaginary hat to the teachers - including McGonagall, Hagrid, and Slughorn - and before going through the door, he raised a hand, flicked it in a little wave and called out, "Ta ta, darlings!"

After he'd gone, the Great Hall was silent for about five seconds and then everyone burst into animated conversation, with Neville trying to make a hole open up in the ground below him. 

Outside, Dante had doubled over in a fit of silent laughter. At least, the demon had doubled over while within his own head Dante was practically weeping tears of fury though he didn't actually weep because he's a manly man. 

_I've never really bothered with ya, God, but if you can spare a minute for me, either just kill me right now or do something about this thing!_

The demon cackled wildly as it got his body moving again, now travelling in leaps and bounds in a way that would have made anyone feel ill. The demon didn't know it, but Dante realised that they were in fact travelling towards his room. Maybe he could try and duck in there somehow. The bit with Lady had been fun but coming on to a _kid_... that was plain creepy. And...

"_Lilith!_"

Dante's body came to a sudden halt and turned round very, very slowly. From the demon's sudden chattering, Dante realised that it also recognised the person who'd shouted and was not too pleased about it either. When they were facing the right way, Nevan gave a little sarcastic wave. Next to her was Lady whose arms were crossed in an ominous manner. 

After losing Dante, Lady had decided to hang around the room he'd been given in the hope that he'd return there, thus meaning that she could ambush him with a well-aimed kick between the legs. And then possibly a whack round the head or something along those lines. Whatever, as long as it involved great pain.

To her surprise though, someone had already been stood by the door to his room and it had been someone Lady certainly didn't expect to see. 

"Nevan... what are you doing?"

The succubus-sometime-electric-guitar flashed a grin at Lady. "Waiting for Dante of course. I expect he'll be acting a little strangely."

"Yeah, the bastard - wait, how did you know?"

Nevan's smile widened, showing gleaming teeth. "Tsk, you're not too sharp today are you honey? I realised _ages_ ago that poor Dante's gotten himself possessed."

Lady blinked and came out with a very intelligent response of "Wha?"

Nevan shook her head and Lady averted her eyes as the demon's hair went in different directions. "He's had absolutely no control over his actions so I hope you weren't planning on killing him..."

"Well..."

Sudden footsteps echoed with loud force, as if the owner was jumping round. Nevan looked away from Lady and glanced up the corridor. "Oh, speak of the devil. Here she comes!"

"She?"

"Oh yes. He's gotten himself possessed by a fashion-conscious female demon. Bet she's been having a lot of fun." 

So here they all were and to the unknowing eye, it would have looked like a pair of jealous girlfriends were about to rip out the unfortunate man's heart, though there was in fact a fourth of course. 

Lilith shifted a little in her stolen body. "Nice to see you, Nevan." 

"You seem a bit uncomfortable, Lilith," Nevan noted coolly. Lady wanted to toss in her own comment but these two seemed to have some grudge and to be honest, this looked like fun. 

"Uncomfortable? I've been having the time of my life! Mr Demon Slayer's been absolutely mortified, the poor darling."

Then Dante's voice, flat and sullen, "McGonagall will be after my freaking _balls_."

Nevan smiled icily. "All right now Lilith, you've had your fun. I kicked your ass once and I can do it again, in the human world." 

Lady thought she caught a slightly worried expression on Dante/Lilith's face but it smoothed away quickly. "Bring it on, darling. That last time was just a fluke." 

The icy smile faded. "Oh really?"

Whatever Lady might have envisioned happening, you can bet she hadn't envisioned Nevan launching herself at Dante… Lilith… Lilith. And then Lady found herself dumbstruck as Nevan slapped Lilith round the face with a loud _smack! _Lilith reeled backward, half raised a hand to her shocked face, changed her mind and instead grabbed a lock of Nevan's vivid red hair and proceeded to yank on it. 

"How dare you, you _biatch?!"_ Nevan was, simply put, pissed. 

Lady half wanted to cover her eyes and half wanted to watch. "You're gonna help him by _bitch_ slapping each other?!" 

The two were too busy battling it out to give her a proper answer. 

"What… the hell?" 

Lady groaned aloud as she realised that the audience of one had increased to four with the arrival of Harry, Ron and Hermione. Ron's ears had gone a bright shade of red, a sure indication that he was a little embarrassed. Hermione was apparently refusing to watch and Harry was looking at Lady for an explanation. 

"He's… possessed," she said, wincing when Nevan started tugging Lilith's ear lobe. "And Nevan's going to exorcise him I assume." 

Harry stared. "But we didn't have to slap that girl to sort her out!"

"Yeah, well, I guess succubi have different ways of doing things and – _whoa_, those two really are going at it." Lilith and Nevan now seemed to be surrounded by a great cocoon of dust, just like in the cartoons. All it needed was some stars flying around here and there. 

Lilith gave a shriek and then it was silent. The dust cleared slowly to reveal Nevan holding Lilith at the nape of the neck, with the possessed body twitching in a sullen way. Ron coughed and turned his back resolutely on the scene. 

"Knew I still had it," Nevan said triumphantly. "No demon gets the better of me." Lilith gave no answer except a redundant attempt to kick Nevan's shins with no success. "C'mon darling, out you get or we can go another round." 

"But – ow, let _go_ of me – I was having so much fun!" 

The smile on Nevan's face sent a chill down Harry's spine. "Are you sure, Lilith?"

Again, no answer but then a black mist suddenly rose out of what was now definitely Dante's body. It coalesced into a vaguely female form and darted this way and that, as if seeking an escape. While Dante asserted that he was alive if a little battered, everyone else watched the mist as it attempted to slip past Nevan.

"Watch it -!" Lady began but Nevan simply pursed her lips and blew the mist away so that it faded out of all existence with a furious wail. And then all eyes looked down to Dante who was sat on the stone floor, looking a little bewildered. 

He raised his head. "So, do you want to murder me now, or later?"

_A/N: Um. So yeah. Sorry for taking ages. And. Um. Yeah. Possessed Dante. Bitch fight. Possessed Dante._

_Y'know what, I'm just gonna go and die of laughter now… by the way… don't kill me… I quite like life… _

_P.S: Yo, if you favourite this or add to your alert list, then please leave a review, okay? _

_P.P.S: Right, about Vergil... thing is, I'm not too sure I want him in this particular fic. I've had long arguments with myself over this because he's my favourite character but I think Vergil will be sitting this one out. I don't think I can do him justice in a story like this, and I've already got my villains sorted. I just don't feel that I could give him a decent part in this. So... most probably, no blue clad demon twin heading your way._


	13. Legilimency

**Chapter Thirteen - Legilimency**

While Severus Snape was not particularly concerned about the fate of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, both of whom had experienced the Dark Lord's displeasure recently, he had made up his mind to try and do something about Draco. With each day that passed, the Dark Lord grew angrier at the lack of progress being made and he often turned his irritation upon the Death Eaters, since Maro was apparently indifferent to the Dark Lord's attempts to punish him. And he had become less discriminating in his targets lately and if Snape was not known for his compassion, he was nonetheless worried about the boy. He was, afterall, only seventeen, barely an adult.

However, Snape knew that escaping would be nothing short of impossible. For one thing, Lord Voldemort just so happened to be an accomplished Legilimens. Snape himself happened to be a pretty damn good Occlumens but there was the little matter of Draco. He might have been taught by his dear aunt to shield his mind, but Snape doubted the boy would be able to resist an attack from Voldemort. So, obviously... Draco would have to know absolutely nothing of Snape's plan which was admittedly sketchy at best. Still, he did like a challenge.

The most immediate challenge was to feign interest in the current discussion while actually plotting the escape. The Dark Lord was once again waxing lyrical about his frustration and Maro was once again reacting with utter indifference. Only the most trusted Death Eaters were present at these discussions and Bellatrix Lestrange shot a furtive look at Snape. It was widely known that Snape was high in the Dark Lord's favour but this did not grant him any greater secrets. He shook his head at her absent-mindedly and continued to think. If he only had an Invisibility Cloak, then his task would be so much simpler. Disillusionment Charms were a possibility, but risky, maybe too risky...

"Surely we should attack again immediately, particularly if what you have told me is true? They will be off-guard and -"

"Not a chance," Maro interrupted, leaning forward a little on his chair which was nothing more than a glorified tree stump. "I don't know what your regular witch or wizard is like, but I do know that Dante, as... thick as he sometimes is, will be on even higher alert after all this. Plus one of his old partners has arrived. I assure you, she will not be easily fooled either."

A sibilant hiss escaped from Voldemort's lips. His carefully made plans were crumbling before him. Every time he suggested something, Maro immediately gave at least five reasons why this would certainly not work. The most irritating thing was that Maro seemed to be immune to any threats, often referring to his 'master'. Who this master might be, Voldemort could not begin to guess and nor did he have any particular inclination to do so.

"Tom?"

His long fingers gave an almost imperceptible twitch. No matter how many times he told the man, Maro refused to call him Voldemort. He made no sign that he had heard but Maro continued anyway.

"You know Harry Potter extremely well, I understand. Surely you must know of some way of drawing him out into the open, vulnerable to attack? He is only a boy after all, he must have a weakness."

For a moment, all was silent. Snape hardly dared look at Voldemort, having already realised exactly what would be following. A second later, Voldemort's thin lips turned up slightly at the end into a smile.

"The boy has heroic tendencies. I used the trick before, luring him by convincing him I had one of his loved ones held hostage. I doubt he will have learnt his lesson. All we will need is someone for him to come and rescue again…" His red eyes came to rest on Snape's impassive face. "Any ideas, Severus?"

"Draco Malfoy, my lord," Snape replied smoothly. Things were going to need great reconsideration. "While he did attempt to kill Dumbledore, Potter will no doubt still feel it his duty to come to the boy's aid."

Maro clapped his hands and rubbed them together in delight. "Finally, we're getting somewhere!"

After the meeting, Bellatrix had hung back a little, shooting meaningful looks in Snape's direction which he took to mean that she wished to speak to him. He obliged, waiting until all was clear and they could not be overhead. From the look on her face, he had an idea that she would have quite liked to slap him.

"What exactly are you thinking?" she hissed, her face barely inches from his own. "Suggesting my sister's son, just like that?"

"Dear me, Bella," Snape said in a low voice. "One would think you were worried about young Draco."

She drew back a little, a thunderous expression engraved into her features. "You know as well as I do that our master does not look kindly upon failure, however slight or long ago it may have been. You think Draco will be let off lightly? What will it do to Narcissa, after you _promised_ to look after –"

He cut across her swiftly. "I would remind you that promise was to only kill Dumbledore if the boy himself was unable to do so. In any case, I do not intend to leave Draco to his fate. I am fully aware of our master's views on failure and punishment. I don't think age concerns him either."

"What are you going to do then?"

"I can't take him away; the Dark Lord will be keeping a close eye on him. The best I can do is to go to the castle myself and ensure Potter plays hero again."

She looked at him doubtfully. "What makes you think Potter will help?"

"Oh I'm sure there'll be some way I can convince him," Snape answered sardonically. "I think it would be wise if you were to inform Draco that he has a duty to perform. It may appear suspicious if I speak with him and then leave."

"Your leaving will be suspicious enough in any case," Bellatrix pointed out. Despite her rather obvious lack of faith in him, Snape secured a promise from her that she would keep quiet about his plans. Everything had been upset by Voldemort's latest idea but there was a way to make it all come round right in the end. After all, Harry Potter was the most predictable teenager Snape had ever come across.

- - - - - - -

A day after the catastrophic events of Dante's possession, the hunter was in his room, perched on the edge of his bed and gloomily contemplating his ruined waistcoat which was dotted with bullet holes. Even after apologising for about twenty minutes, Lady had still seen fit to make him look like some sort of cheese. It might have been pretty funny if not for the predictable side-effects of pain and blood. He'd been forced to don his backup clothes, which consisted of a black t-shirt, a leather jacket and a spare pair of leather trousers.

"I did say sorry, you know," he said. "About fifty times."

Lady shifted a little in the doorway. "Thing is, I couldn't really shoot Lilith, and you don't die that easy anyway."

"That doesn't mean you can shoot me!"

"I did like the look on your face though yesterday, when you went to apologise to that kid."

Dante flushed, a rare occurrence for the hardcore demon hunter. After being severely reprimanded by Lady (and we won't even go into what Nevan did), he'd immediately gone to the Great Hall, managed to find Neville and explained the situation to him at great length. Poor Neville looked as if he'd be traumatised for the rest of his days.

He shot a dark look at her. "This is the reason you don't have a boyfriend."

"No," she disagreed. "It's because I know that most men are jerks. And don't you _dare_ imply anything stupid," she added upon seeing a smirk twitch at his mouth.

Dante's expression turned sulky. "Pfft, like I'd try saying anything to you at all, Little Miss Trigger Happy. I don't think you ever realise how much it costs me to replace my clothes."

"What the hell are you on about, that stuff looks like you nicked it from a trash can."

"Hey!!"

Before Dante could explain in detail how each item of his outfit had to be carefully tailored to suit his special needs, and how there could never be a stitch out of place, and how all this cost a great deal of his hard-earned money which she took most of anyway, Hagrid drew up to the door, his huge shoulders heaving up and down in great gasps of breath. Lady took a step back in surprise, not having come face to face with the half-giant before. Dante however immediately registered the urgency apparent on Hagrid's face. He stood up, tossed aside the ruined rag that had once been a waistcoat and said simply, "Let's go."

- - - - - - -

"And so that's when McGonagall told me to keep an eye on you, and here we both are. Except I won't keep a proper eye on you, of course." Dante winked with his head turned resolutely away from the former Potions Master. "They've told me about this mind-reading thing you do."

Snape twisted slightly in his chair and glared. "It's called Legilimency," he muttered irritably and then returned his attention to the thin chains binding him to the chair. He was uncomfortably reminded of that chair within the court room at the Ministry. At least here he wasn't surrounded by arrogant officials peering down their noses at him. No, he was just sharing this room with the devil hunter who was nonchalantly lying on a bed with a thin mattress, head resting against the wall and humming to himself from time to time, in between explaining how he had come to be the guard in here.

He had barely gotten away early that morning, even with his Disillusionment Charm in place and Bella doing her best to distract just about every single Death Eater in the forest. He had not counted upon the monsters seeking to prevent his escape and their sudden roars of delight at discovering a new plaything had brought Fenrir Greyback sniffing round. The werewolf had started to raise the alarm when he realised Snape's intention but the latter silenced him swiftly with a Stunning Spell. He could have killed the man but Snape had no wish to tear his soul any further. Leave that to Voldemort.

It had been relatively easy to avoid the demons' attacks. After all, he'd studied the Dark Arts and also ways in which to magically defend oneself and it was a simple matter to cast physical shields when necessary, to attack when defence would not suffice. Streaking across the front lawn at a surprising pace, his progress was only arrested by the apparently sudden appearance of most of the school's staff along with a couple of Aurors, Tonks and Kingsley. Surprisingly, none of them were particularly pleased at his arrival and he was unceremoniously stuck in this room, left alone for a short while and then… this man had arrived.

Dante plucked at his shirt with a scowl and then spoke again to Snape. "What made you come back anyway? You're not thick. You knew they'd lock you up."

"I am not accustomed to answering the questions of a man who doesn't look at me," Snape snapped.

"Ooh, tetchy, aren't we?"

Snape ignored him. Nobody had wanted to listen to him when he'd arrived, convinced Voldemort had sent him as a spy when all these years it had been the other way round. Naturally nobody thought he was telling the truth and none of them made eye contact, only too aware of his prowess as a Legilimens. He wanted to show at least one of them the truth somehow but that was becoming increasingly impossible. At least, he had thought so until he'd come face to face with Dante, not for the first time.

All he needed now was for Dante to just look at him and he might be able to convince the other man.

"The Dark Lord has been wondering why the Headmistress called you in," he said evenly.

"Is that so?" Dante asked in a voice devoid of interest. "Hasn't Maro told you all about how I'm a fearsome demon killer?"

"That's funny because I would have thought a fearsome demon killer wouldn't have let a child die." He sensed rather than saw that Dante had tensed and could picture the tight expression on the man's face.

"What are you getting at?"

His conscience pricked him but Snape pressed on nonetheless. "You let her die, didn't you? You could have gone after her, such a prodigious fighter as yourself, yet you left her -"

A sudden red blur. Dante was stood before him, snarling, "You don't get it, I couldn't _do_ anything, not then!" His blazing blue eyes locked with Snape's own dark eyes and in that moment he realised but it was too late.

_Dante was running and so was Snape, rain lashing viciously at his/their faces. The latter realised he was seeing through Dante's eyes instead of viewing the memory from a distance and this unsettled him. The rapid footsteps were those of a child, ragged gasps like thunder in his ears. _

"_Dante! Hide, hide and don't come out!" _

_There was a curious shift in the surroundings and they were stood alone in a ravaged room. Glistening glass littered the floor and Snape saw splashes of blood streaked across the damaged walls. A small voice floated out._

"_Mom… Vergil…"_

_That change again and now the scene was atop a tower with wind whistling and the moon appearing huge, providing a baleful glow over the confrontation at the very apex of the structure. Bright sparks flew, illuminating the faces of the combatants. Blue and red, reckless and graceful, the twins fought fiercely, bitterly. Without warning there was an awful screech of metal scraping against metal and Rebellion was flung high into the dark sky and both Dante and Severus felt the icy sting of the katana as the weapon slid between ribs. A cool voice that was yet charged with adrenalin spoke: "Foolishness, Dante…"_

_Then they were watching as the elder twin leaned back, further and further until finally Vergil was falling off the edge, a slight smile or smirk on his usually passive face. Dante lunged forward with a hand outstretched, barely knowing what he was doing, barely considering what might happen if he could reach but the cool katana struck again, biting deep into his palm and Vergil was lost within the darkness that seemed solid._

"_Quit_ that!" Dante growled aloud. One hand was clutching at his head, buried in the silver hair. His teeth were bared, in pain or anger but Snape did not relent.

_Thunder roared and lightning struck a bright scar against the sky and the flash reflected brightly off the gleaming metal of the amulet resting in his hand. The jewel winked and a woman's voice echoed dimly: "Vergil, Dante, happy birthday…" Nelo Angelo, Vergil, both only a memory now as Dante knelt alone, clutching the final memento of his family. _

"Get the hell out of my mind!" Dante cried and shoved back mentally, casting the pair of them through Snape's own memories. Unlike Dante, he did not resist the intrusion – this was the only way he could convince the man that he had all this time been on Dumbledore's side, right until the end. Dante saw with growing understanding how Snape had given the Potters to Voldemort, had then begged the Headmaster to protect Lily, how he had sworn to help protect Harry after she died, how he had done so for years

And then how in the end he had killed Dumbledore to preserve Draco's own before fleeing, so that those who had trusted him thought they had been betrayed.

At last Snape broke the eye contact, looking away to the side. When he looked back he saw Dante had moved back slightly, his own sharp gaze fixed upon the double agent.

"He _told_ you to kill him," said Dante in a low voice, the sentence a statement rather than a question. Snape nodded. For a few minutes there was only silence. At last Dante straightened fully and moved towards the door without a word.

"Where are you going?" Snape asked, slightly worried by the expression on Dante's face. Dante paused a moment.

"I'm going to tell McGonagall all this so that you can get out of those chains," he answered and continued on his way, opening the door. He spotted Snape about to say something further and shook his head, pre-empting the apology. "Don't. I get why you did it. Just don't pull anything like that on me again." He left the room, closing the door behind him with a soft _snick_.

Snape was left alone and he found it impossible to stop thinking about the devil hunter who was part demon himself, and about what he had gleaned of the strange man's history. But still he thought about Draco and wondered how long it would be before the next inevitable confrontation.

_- - - - - - - -_

_A/N: Well this took me a while, didn't it? My apologies. I should warn you all that the next chapter may be a little time in coming again, as in three days I will be taking my GCSEs and I'm afraid exams come before fan fiction (crazy, ain't it?). This chapter's a bit shorter than the previous ones, which bugs me slightly but I really didn't want to drag it out any longer and anyway, I've got plans for the next few chapters. Before now I've not had much in the way of concrete plans but I think that now I got most of the plot figured out, except for a couple of fiddly bits at the end. I doubt even the best writers have every teeny bit decided before hand anyway: I reckon stories like to write themselves sometimes. This is pretty much irrelevant, but here's something that isn't: if you read my fic, if you favourite it, or add it to your alert list, please do me the great favour of reviewing. I like to know what I'm doing well and what I can improve, even ideas for what can happen – hey, if you've got better ideas than me, I'm open to 'em. For now, this is Cobalt Demoness, over and out!_

_PS: I remember someone asking about Lilith in a review. A while back I was fascinated by demonology so I was checking out demon names and found that one. I thought it was a pretty name (maybe I'll call my daughter Lilith?) and when I wrote Chapter 12, I decided to use it. Also, someone said they skim read Dante's possession bit. Heh, I completely understand. You have NO idea how much I was cringing and going "I'm so dead, aaaahhh!" while writing it. _

_PPS: Oh yeah. Final thing: definitely no Vergil at all, folks. Even if you beg me in reviews. He has no place in this story the way I see it. And, if I'm honest, I couldn't bring myself to put him into the Harry Potter universe. Don't ask me why. And now I'm really going. _


End file.
